(00:00) boys and babes to our little lifegiving podcast we so gratefully live our Bliss through it’s the magic hour a place where we navigate through life’s Peaks and valleys with all the vulnerability and shamelessness we can muster with the help of world-class guests from all walks of life we uncover new truths and valuable tools for manifesting our Highest Potential I’m your host Mercedes Terell along with my partner in shine Jade Bry hey you guys I cannot hardly wait to get our guests on today I discovered him through one of our

(00:31) previous guests Paige beers dorer when she re recommended the book he wrote called being at your best when your kids are at their worst I know I can be hard on myself as a parent but something Our Guest today really instills in you throughout that book is compassion not just for your child but for yourself which is so important because I feel that it is when I am hardest on myself that I am hardest on my kids and it’s when I’m maybe angry with someone else or unhappy about something in my own life that I’m not my best self towards

(01:00) my kids and the truth is whatever mood I am in they tend to emulate it we sometimes think that it’s not you know on our hardest days that our kids are acting crazy but if we really take a step back and look at things we find that they are typically mimicking us and it sounds so hard to navigate especially for me as a single mom and a very passionate and emotional woman but our guest today makes it so easy and attainable and he also he just articulates it in a way that makes you feel compassion for yourself as a parent

(01:29) yes and also this is a universal topic because at all times we are parenting ourselves which is something we talk about on the show a lot um we all need to love ourselves the way that we would love a small child and applying his methods gives us the tools to do exactly that and it actually hi hi hi you there do you have a little uh video icon oh there you go awesome cool hi hi so so um I know we don’t have um I know you have limited time so um we’re going to just jump right into the questions if that’s

(02:07) okay right and um uh Jade how long will um uh the the end ofview your podcast are usually how long about an hour is that okay okay yeah yeah good I just want to um you know Pace my like past it incorrectly good and um and it’s audio only right yes we do use small video clips as promo use to like promote on social media but uh the podcast itself is Audio Only yeah so do you want me how’s the lighting because I don’t have any of my studio lights and I don’t have my studio mic on how’s the how’s the audio because I do have

(02:46) everything sounds great and looks great okay all right then won’t worry about it good yeah awesome okay um all right so um Mercedes you’re recording everything good we are all set on the side okay awesome all right Kim so let’s jump straight in what is the best way that we can regulate ourselves so that we can be more in control of our own reactions to our children you know um oh you remind me I need to turn mine off too okay Mercedes you you’ll be editing this later yeah yeah don’t worry about

(03:28) that okay um I love that background I know isn’t it thank you in the cosmos here you know I just got a plain old okay um the best way we can regulate okay and and um and Jade will your questions be on or should I repeat the question do you edit your questions out or do yeah um no they’re in they’re in the episode yeah but we do cut promos for a lot of uh you know we take chunks out of this and we use it for promotional material so when you feel like repeating the question or you have a way you want to

(04:07) say it back so that it we can fit it all in there that’s always helpful too but it’s not necessary that’s kind of what I was asking it’s a lot easier for editors sometimes sometimes yeah yeah yeah okay good all right so so um so Jay do you want to just start again you mind just question okay Kim Let’s jump straight in what is the best way that we can regulate ourselves so that we can be more in control of our reactions to our children you know regulating ourselves when our kids are pushing our buttons

(04:39) that is so not easy because our kids are like experts they are just experts and they they kind of push every button on our control panel they just know how to do it you you think it’s just like some weird um just just expertise they have and it’s just not easy to do um there there are there are a number of ways to to help um our kids and help ourselves when they’re doing that and one of the first things to is is to re is to understand that they don’t mean it they don’t wake up in the morning thinking H

(05:16) I wonder how I can really upset my mother today let me let me choose from this selection right you’d swear they do right but they but they don’t they don’t they don’t do it one of the things that that’s that’s a bunch of parents say really helpful is that um uh when our kids do that kind of stuff is to understand they’re like um they’re like echolocating us they’re like pinning us um one of the things you know like I’ve been a school counselor for years and years family counselor um but I just

(05:51) don’t believe in Disobedience I’ve never met a disobedient kid in my life I’ve only ever met a disoriented one and I don’t mean that just and nice way of seeing it like I’ve met some right little RS I can tell you good um but but they’re disoriented they are when they and when they’re Behaving Badly like that they’re actually trying to they’re trying to um get themselves together they’re like pinging us like like uh Navigators do it see they they send out these these um this sound and

(06:28) it bounces on something and comes back and what our kids are doing is sending out Behavior because I don’t know have you seen little kids when they do stuff that’s really naughty and they look right at you have you ever yeah they do it and then they look at you and say so what are you gonna do about that you know it’s it’s um you know and to understand that they’re doing it to it to find themselves they’re doing it because because you know Behavior All That is is um it’s communication they

(07:05) connection yeah exactly yeah know good thought that they they need connection and if we know our kids are pinging us they’re echolocating via US it’s just knowing that I know it sounds like nothing much it might sound sort of philosophical but just knowing that they’re doing that um it’s really hard to take it personally if a child messes you around and you look at him or her or them and just and just saying I wonder why you’re so lost don’t say that out loud I think you’re weird but um

(07:45) but um I’m lost because you’re weird mom um um but but you know if we can look at them and wonder that inside ourselves it’s just just super hard to take it personally it’s not about me anymore right and that and that and that if we don’t take it personally our our kids do something called co-regulating and co-regulating it’s a really um it’s it’s a really wonderful and and um amazing thing to understand when kids co-regulate um maybe I C if I can give an image a metaphor about Cor regulation because if

(08:31) we get ourselves together then our kids do too and the metaphor for I was working with a guy years ago called Joseph Chilton Pierce he wrote a book about Transcendent biology really really interesting book and one of the things he said was that if you take a cell out of a heart and which you can do apparently and put it in a solution look it under microscope the cell will um will beat and it’s it will keep beating actually in the same way the heartbeats now then after a while it’ll fibrillate and then expire but if you take when

(09:06) it’s fibrillating you know when it’s not doing well if you take a cell from another heart a completely different heart and put it beside the fibrillating cell the one that is is fibrillating that is dying will will recover and the two will start beating in unison wow what a love story what a love story a s love story right um but that’s what our kids need when they’ve lost it when they’ve lost it they’re emotionally fibrillating do you know what I mean it’s like you you can just see it if we can hold it together

(09:49) is you know don’t have to be spectacular at this we don’t sort of um have to be sort of Yoda likee um if we can just hold it together a little bit then they will start co-regulating so that’s why I appreciate your question because it’s not about them it’s it’s honestly when our kids are messing us around it’s not about them it’s not about me it’s about us it’s about the space between us right that’s why I wrote this being at your best you know this this this you’re

(10:21) referring to being at your best when kids are at their worst because when they’re not doing so well they’re so needing to rely on us not screaming not shouting because do you know that feeling when you scream and shout at a kid and or you just you know just lose it a little bit even it’s do you ever have that feeling that you can like you you can actually hear yourself doing it you can feel it in your body before it even happens okay so so okay so there you go and you can hear yourself doing it and and you can see yourself doing it

(10:58) and you can’t stop right and you’re thinking man this is so not attractive you know this is yeah I’m going to regret this later but Jade one of the things you mentioned just now to to another point to answer um your question is a lot of the parents I work with we work really hard to understand where our um body clenches are because your body will tell you ahead of of your um of your emotions the body you get you about sort of three or so seconds lead time before something really unfortunate happens and so some parents say you know

(11:41) I I feel it in my shoulders others you know it’s it’s different places for different people where for example for me I um I played a lot of football um and so we got as kid and we got to to brace for impact so we would we would lock out our knees and brace for impact um and so when I’m starting to lose it I actually feel it I I lock out my knees when you guys when you guys are about to do it where do you feel it meres I uh well Mercedes has a partner so she can maybe uh relate it there yeah I noticed

(12:18) for me um I noticed that my heart rate is just elevated and so um in any conversation if I can get my heart rate down then I normally I typically don’t regret what happened but if I react when my heart rate is elevated it’s never what I would like it to be right and you can but you know and and and it’s interesting that you can sense it f you sense it you sense it one mom described it to me as um she used a term the red Mists Rising I I’d never heard that term before I’d never heard it but as as soon

(12:56) as she mentioned it I knew exactly what she yeah do you get a place where you go to Mercedes shoulders or something like that when you’re starting to get mad and you yeah it’s the back of my neck and you know trap area or it’s kind of the the heat in the pit of my stomach more and I think it all goes to like slowing down because all of those things you do in that moment they’re a shortcut yelling spanking it’s all a shortcut and a convenience thing and it’s long you’re choosing like um long-term suffering

(13:28) you’re you’re choosing like um short you’re choosing short-term suffering over over yeah short-term you’re choosing shortterm uh no what is the saying where but if you’re doing what what Kim is saying yeah you know what I mean if you’re doing what Kim is saying then you’re choosing the connection which isn’t convenient and it takes longer but it’s easier in the long run because you have children that are able to connect with you yeah I mean when we’re the way I look at anger is it’s

(13:57) just an emotional attempt to address an emotional imbalance and usually when we’re feeling small we make ourselves angry in in order to get get our shape back yeah like yelling when you don’t feel heard yeah like yelling exactly exactly like yelling when you don’t feel hurt couldn’t better and and the um and so in order to uh in order to sort of understand well first of all to understand that I’m yelling because I don’t feel heard is a really big one can’t tell you how many moms and dads

(14:31) over the years have said to me when I’ve asked like what what is it what is the what’s the trigger point for you you know when when people around you Partners kids work PE colleagues and many of them say it’s feeling unheard it’s feeling unseen um I I worked for a while in uh in southern Africa and they had this great greeting there you hear it all around the marketplaces you hear people say saanu subu and they’re calling it out it’s so joyous and it means I see you I love that but then the response

(15:11) this is so great the response to it is um isona andona means so now I am here so so the greeting and you hear it all the time subu um brother subo sister and Thena thank you now I am here yeah you can’t be here unless you’re seen right yeah that validation of existence yeah which is so interesting because you saying I don’t feel heard um it’s completely different than saying well I’m yelling because they’re not listening you’re making it about your children whereas when you say I don’t

(15:46) feel heard you’re making it about yourself um and if you can heal that then in turn you’re going to make your children feel seen and H as well well the only thing you can control is yourself I know yeah I isn’t that that’s the good news in the bad news all in one go yeah it really is right because yelling at your kids thinking I’m going to control their behavior is I don’t know it’s like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die it’s it’s just it just doesn’t one

(16:16) of the things um that I often think of is is that is that poison and toxicity just erodes the vessel that holds it bad thoughts toxic thoughts it’s not it’s only hurting one self I mean really that’s that’s all there is to it and you know and that’s okay we sort of can get this sort of stuff but our kids really um how can we how can we put it that that what would be the eism that it’s a a big personal development moment you know yeah because they test they test us out and so in that way you know

(16:54) when our kids are really messing us around if we know they’re lost right and they’re just trying to find themselves then a couple of things happen one I’ve already mentioned is that we is there’s not a big chance that we’ll take it personally because it literally takes us into a different part of our brain if we’re inquisitive rather than accusative right then that lifts us out of the fight ORF flight brain and brings us right into the the mid and front uh the the lyic and the frontal

(17:23) loes so just the very Act of training yourself to pause and wonder give yourself a couple of seconds notice your body clench the body clench wherever the clench is um notice it train yourself to wonder I wonder what’s going on for my kid even if you force yourself through gritted teeth to ask that question I wonder what’s going on for this bloody little kid you know um even even that you’re really elevated but you force yourself to stop and ask or or um partners are included Mercedes um I wonder what what’s going on for this

(18:01) person that in itself starts it brings you away from the amigdala from the fight flight and I had always had freeze or flock flock um yeah flock flocking is the gang thing flocking is when people start to recruit each other it’s when brothers and sisters will start trying to get people on their side or Partners workmates will start recruiting others that’s the flocking Instinct but it’s still really primitive it seems like it’s not but gossiping when you gossip about a a workmate um that’s just the

(18:40) amydala that’s the Primitive that’s the monkey brain that’s the lizard brain actually it’s more ancient it’s a lizard brain um because it’s because it’s just a dressed up flocking mechanism fight flight freeze or flock and the thing that I really like about understanding that your kid has lost it and they’re trying to find themselves is that you don’t have to um come up with some spectacular answer you don’t the answer it’s okay you might think okay my kid is uh low

(19:14) blood sugar oh I knew we shouldn’t have done that extra play date oh man I just knew that what whatever it is you might come up with an but actually that doesn’t matter what matters is that You’ have changed the it’s almost like the emotional chemistry you’ve just you’ve just gone ahead and changed it yeah so that yeah what do you think well if you like you think like we’re the most important people in their lives and you think about like um if you’re with your partner and you’re having an inner

(19:47) meltdown and you’re feeling lost would you want them to yell at you would you want them to like and they’re so much bigger than you like we are to our kids in a way they’re so important and like if you think well I just want them to ask me what’s really wrong and then to be there for me um so I think if we can also think of our kids as like we’re really like we’re their world you know the way that sometimes our partner is and how we would want our partner to respond to us and to have

(20:13) hold a general sense of respect whether I think it’s for your child or for your partner so it all comes down to compassion yeah well you know one of the it’s it’s it’s this compassion piece is huge because compassion doesn’t always need to be soft and gentle compassion can be being very direct and really Tru you know um or anything in between but one of the things that I write about a lot and I I I discovered this um this practical compassion this this I call the compassionate response practice I was um

(20:52) uh a a long time ago I was working in court-ordered counseling for domestic abusing husbands and these guys had been through you know cognitive behavioral therapy every anger management therapy you could imagine they were right on the edge of custodial sentences and these were really good guys though were nice guys and they were when it all came down to it they were deeply ashamed at their behavior once you sort of lay it on down through it they they truly were these were these were just regular working guys and I

(21:25) came to real you know we had good good conversations but I realized really quickly that um all that stuff wasn’t going to work now at the time I had the the big Advantage I was um uh um you can hear I’m not from the United States right with one or two words um I grew up in Australia and in Australia Sports is um kind of obsessional we’re really into in a big way and I was a a um a youth elite athlete I represented you know my country and which sounds kind of great but it sort of wasn’t for a kid and a

(22:04) teenager to go through that because we got Wicked overtrained and it was part of it was tough but part of it was really great and the reason I’m saying all this is that we got access to sports psychologists now as a as a kid I had no idea that even something like that even existed but these Sports psychologists taught us visualization the power of visualization it was amazing because I was a you know I could train really well I could do really well but when I got in front of thousands and thousands of screaming people my performance really

(22:35) dropped always did it was okay enough to stay in the team but it wasn’t full potential performance now these people taught me to visualize and they taught me to visualize um myself playing really really well they they taught me to and and I said to them but that’s stupid because I’m not playing well they said doesn’t matter just do it just visualize yourself playing really well and every time uh you before you walk out onto the pitch every time you just visualize that visualize yourself doing super well so

(23:07) anyway I did um and I but I also came to realize that I feared not doing well there was a fear in me that I I wouldn’t because this is in front of tens of thousands of people right and and you just feel like a it’s like you’re just letting everyone down and so I started also this is as a kid was kind of interesting thing to do as a kid but I started visualizing myself not doing well because I grew up a presbyterian we’re heavily into sort sort of stuff life is hard and all that anyway um and

(23:41) so I started visualizing the two things myself doing really well and and got a good grip on that and then started visualizing and allowing the visualization the picture of myself feeling terrible feeling to be honest i’ feel a little bit ashamed because I let my down so I started had given that so I started working with that and it was amazing how my sports performance increased now working with these dads I could see that they were really ashamed they weren’t playing in front of thousands of people but they were doing

(24:12) this in front of their kids their extended family knew about it it you know people knew and these guys now you know in court because of it so I said to them hey look let’s not do any more anger management they were really happy about that I said um uh let’s just I described to them a little bit about about my sports biography like I did I said let’s do this you guys are really brilliant dads and some of them these are tough guys right we just tear right up at hearing I said no one said that to me in years and

(24:45) I said of course you are of course you are you you get on perfectly well with your kids a lot of the time you you you you would you would take a bullet for them you just totally would and they said of yes which is why we get so upset when they’re so disrespectful I said exactly so let’s get let’s take a moment and realize how brilliant you are how it’s totally brilliant how you have fun how you care for your kids and you love them deeply so we would we would create a real living picture of that and then

(25:18) I’d say okay now let’s let’s picture yourself doing really badly one dad called it his inner jerk and they and that was easy because they been there a lot they’ve been told how bad they were about so many people because they were they genuinely were that was terrible things they’ done so um we would picture that and and one of the things that was really interesting was that they could really quickly go to the bad guy stuff but it was kind of hard for them to go to the good guy stuff not easy now as as parents this is

(25:54) not just guys like this that’s us all we can have such high standards for ourselves man we have high and this thought of am I really screwing my kid up am I manage here am I doing something wrong and it’s where it’s it’s it’s full of self-doubt like parenting is just the path of vulnerability yeah it really is you just can’t be more vulnerable I guess being a partner is right up there um uh uh very vulnerable in that but there’s no way out in parenting there’s no but there’s no way out yeah there’s

(26:30) no way out right you got it it’s just you and them so um I started working with this with these guys and I and and their behavior started to shift for the first time because remember these guys were on the edge of a custodial s and they started improving and they started getting it together and then I realized something really important was that the bad guy stuff the bad parents stuff was taking up way too much space the good was was out of whack right the good parent was this tiny little thing and the bad guy was huge so that when their

(27:07) kids would do stuff and they’d get triggered really easily because they couldn’t remember their goodness so what we started doing was this power of this visualization that I learned in sports it’s interesting a lot of stuff you learn in sports applies to life that’s I guess that’s why we do it yeah but um I started teaching them to actually and myself too to to like reach out to this bad guy stuff to the bad parent reach out to it and treat it like a fever because I’d ask these guys when your

(27:39) kids got a fever what do you do and they say well we hold them we hold them real close I said okay but you have a fever too you have a fever so hold yourself real close like forgive yourself like reach out to all that stuff which they were trying to push away now this is the key thing they were trying to push this stuff away I don’t I don’t like that side of myself and and was a bit weird suggesting they reach out to it andow it in that’s what you do with the child you draw them in so you draw yourself in

(28:09) reach out with that visualization and Own It Own It own the fact that you can be a really scary dad or a parent doing so well bring that in and just forgive yourself that’s Jade that back to the compassion you mentioned just having self-compassion because we can have compassion for others like if you’re if someone in your family’s really sick we a really close friend you know a dear pet an animal in your family that has been there for years a lot of compassion but we don’t often have compassion for

(28:46) ourselves and so reach out just and this is this is what we can do for ourselves as parents any parent is just is is create a visualization of ourselves and we’re not doing so well and this may sound counterintuitive but then just accept it accept then step number two there’s only two steps step number two is to remember how great we are and give that more space and just breathe it out let it out just grow and glow and be fantastic be spectacular and just do it quietly yourself and just practice breathing in the the the the bad parent

(29:25) the the shameful parent the I’m not good enough parent you can imagine what it’s like for me I write books on parenting so every time I mess up I think man I write books on this stuff and I just messed up yeah like and so for me I it’s it’s I feel like an impostor right so so you just reach right out and just get a hold of that thing because it’s going to control us if we learn it out there whatever weight we hold away from us gets heavier yeah P that weight in it gets lighter and lighter and

(29:57) lighter make it smaller say you know what I forgive myself that is me I I’m not perfect I forgive it and then remember breathe out this great self now the reason I’m suggesting this is that when we’re with our kids if we practice that like in the morning before our feet Hit the Floor just one breath in of of okay here we go another day and particularly right now where we’re with our kids a lot it’s like going in kind of feeling right okay so you draw that right on in and that that kind of hesitancy or

(30:34) whatever it is and then you let out you know what I’m a really good Mom I’m a I’m a pretty dad I remember times when I was pretty on my game if we do that and we practice it only takes 30 seconds couple of times a day 30 seconds practice that here’s the thing is that when our kids push our buttons then it becomes like an emotional muscle member then they push our button and we feel that Red Mist Rising we say and we feel that that anger frustration shame imposter whatever it is if we’ve practiced this

(31:13) enough just just like a musician will practice for a concert just like an athlete will practice for a game somehow in parenting we think we can just wing it yeah and we can’t that’s true I’m suggesting that we practice it and really really quick little practice and then bring that on in and then release on out this feeling of you know what I’m a good enough Mom I’m a good enough Dad I’m doing all right here now and then and only then do we speak to our kid now when we speak to our kid

(31:49) from that sort of space that we’re balanced and we and we discover our voice not some weird stress regress voice you know some voice my U my work one of my closest working colleagues um she often says if it’s hysterical it’s historical oh that’s good and she says it that’s do you know do you know the singer songwriter juwel jeel we we work a lot together we’re about to do a TV series together wow amazing that kind of that she says some great stuff and that that um hysterical it’s historical it’s I love

(32:31) that yeah right um she writes about that also in her never broken book as well but because she’s had a biography she’s had pretty I’ve read it have you it’s it’s strong stuff isn’t it yeah um and so when when we speak to our kids if we just bring in the darkness let out the light right then what our kids hear is us not some weird triggered voice from our biography and kids they want to hear our voice they really really do it’s and when they’re not doing so well and they hear us being

(33:16) centered like that but I’m full circle back to the two beating Hearts yes that’s what they then they’ve lost it they’re saying you’re the worst mom or you’re the worst partner ever you you like whatever it is they they’re they’re saying some pretty unkind stuff and we’ve managed to hold it together they they’ll know it and they can start regulate is that it doesn’t mean we have to be kind and calm and we might turn to a kid and say hey Max that’s they’re often called

(33:55) Max certain names they anyway you might turn right to can say Hey you may not talk to your sister like that you’re a helpful little boy or you’re a helpful girl you’re a helpful kid and what you just did was man that was unhelpful that was so UNH helpful something must be bugging you to behave like that just cut it out you might get that voice or might just have you know what come over here love you just need a cuddle yeah yeah and but whatever you do is real it’s not fake right because you know when you’re

(34:34) trying to with anyone you’re trying to you’ve got this thing going on inside you and then outside you you’re staying calm right kids know it yeah yeah that foundational work is really important I think we uh we address that a lot on the show usually in you know adult relationships with we use uh to use a yian term Shadow work you know making sure you do this work on your shadows and your Darkness so that when you go out into the world you can be the best light you know the light you want to be um and that’s I think that is

(35:07) foundational and that that practice that you gave us there is something that anyone can practice whether you have children or not but um I could see how that would put you in the right State of Mind to go interact with your kids for sure and so I wanted to ask you about um screen time because something that is so different from when jadeen and I grew up was you know we didn’t have this easy and readily accessible screen time we were more than likely outplaying maybe we had a VHS we popped in the I don’t

(35:36) know if we’re aging ourselves now um but can you talk to us about how screen time might be affecting our kids today and and how it may actually affect their future as well yeah no it’s a it’s a big question it’s on a lot of parents Minds it’s on a um is um you see from me I’m not so much just anti- screen because being anti anything is is is not so helpful but because screens are great you know in terms of well look at us right now we’re communicating through a screen but through technology we’ll put this

(36:14) message out into the world through technology it’s it’s a brilliant tool but man it’s a powerful tool it’s really really powerful tool probably the most powerful since fire right it’s just very powerful and in for me I’m not a set anti screen per se but I’m passionately Pro connection yes right re human connections real connections now the Kaiser Family Foundation did a study and this is way back in 2011 and they found that kids uh on average um are exposed to seven and a half hours of Screams per

(36:54) day per day the common sense media uh uh uh group follow that up and they uh they replicated the study and they find it’s now 9 and A4 hours holy cow I know right it’s like it’s it’s huge and now if anyone’s listening to this and their kids and they and they’re thinking man do my kids really just add it up slowly just add it up it’s it’s big particularly if they’ve got phones right or tablets or video games yeah tablets video games because they just draw you right in you know that feeling when you

(37:29) played a video game and you come out of it and you think I I was just doing that for like two hours that time am I ever going to get that life back right for me it’s it’s all about connection and it’s a connection to to not just random connections it’s a connection to four things that screams inter feere because they take so much time the first thing is the connection to to Nature we all know that kids just thrive in a natural world down the park if you’re in a city environment out out in the in in the woods if you’re in a

(38:08) rural environment but connection to Nature it’s you know do you remember that times those times when you were kids and you were just out in nature it’s it’s it’s when you connect to something larger than yourself the really important point is that many kids now are not connecting to things larger than themselves so they become little tyrants they expect their needs to be met at all times their world is now revolving around them right and and and and we all want to raise our kids with with a spirit of of

(38:46) appreciation not with a false sense of entitlement but if we wanted them to to have if we want them to have a connection with something larger than themselves there’s just no better way way than to give them time and nature yeah right because then they don’t turn into these little little kind of princes and princesses right nature doesn’t n doesn’t nature is a is is full on into non-discrimination it’s humbling yeah yeah great Point Mercedes that’s it right it’s humbling and you see the seasons change

(39:22) and you know that things are going on that you can’t control yeah because kids these days are trying to control kind of everything you put a tablet in their hand and that makes you ruler of your Universe right right so time in nature really helps kids get an idea there’s something bigger than themselves and that might sound like a small point but it’s behaviorally it’s golden it’s really golden wow yeah so that’s the first connection that I really am Keen for kids to do but if they’re on the screen

(39:53) for 3 four five six seven hours a day that’s time could be spending knowing there something bigger than them and what they’re doing is actually doing the opposite because now I’m I rule this world yeah narrowing your focus really narrowing the focus there you are yeah so the second one it’s like concentric circles that’s the biggest circle out the next Circle in the next the SEC the second one is connection to F to friends and play do you remember being out playing with friends to all hour just yeah H you

(40:30) know paint paint the the ball and the bases with that probably super toxic green paint playing you know into the night just those that unstructured play time with friends that’s kind of right there is a connection to social emotional intelligence is what our kids are going to need to succeed we we all know that it’s not about SAT scores social intelligence it’s about being smart it’s when to use your smarts yes and so that kind of impulse control you see that’s what play gives us because you can’t just be impulsive

(41:10) because you fail you get caught if you’re impulsively run for b or run for that tree which is BAS or whatever you’re going to get so you learn impulse control if we’re spending seven a half hours of screens a day or even three or four and we don’t get to be with friends uh we get to because friends are different to friending they’re different right yeah um and that’s where kids learn a lot of impulse control and that’s where kids start to have good sense of timing which is crucial they’re going to succeed so

(41:45) there’s that that’s the second Circle um the third circle is connection to family and that’s obvious yeah connection Family Values not just family but the values in our family um that that way kids can can grow up with a with a with a I think of it as a sense of True North not the magnetic north of toxic pop culture right but true north um so that so that when things come up with them as they grow up and they then they’re teenagers and I’ve got a teenager and I’ve got one kid who’s

(42:18) just just left for college and they’re sort of you know you just you just got your fingers crossed and you’re thinking man I hope I those kids values not my values not really not I don’t want them to replicate me but of course but just growing them up in a value centered home because we often hear we got to have child centered homes and I’m not a big in that it’s just too much power to get a kid child centered you got have value yeah yeah it’s not realistic it’s not it’s too much power

(42:55) to give little kids and they don’t feel safe if it’s child centered a callon shorts It’s value centered and again that takes time if we walk into our home and kids we’ve got a couple of kids and all they’re doing is staring at screens for hours and we’re there and then we go look at a screen too right that’s not time for connection I’ll give you a quick example um my two kids that I mentioned I’m only allowed to mention them three times a day they put quter on me okay this the

(43:30) all right I hope it’ll be wise in the third but the um but the the um so we’re down at uh I live near Boston and we’re down at the airport and one of one of them uh who’s been traveling a little bit lately she’s she’s flying out at the same time as the younger one the younger one doesn’t know the the the V the land airport so much she’s done a little bit but not but now she’s on her own you know she’s away from us as parents so the the older one the 19-year-old is saying to the 17y old look don’t worry

(44:00) about it I’ll take you through because she was heading off to Australia actually and my other daughter was heading off to Europe and uh so she said the old one says I’ll take care of you don’t worry about it so they’re going through security and they have to take off their shoes and the younger one looks back at me and just with this big Grim because I had to wrestle her to put on shoes in the first place and she’s look and I know she’s not going to put them back on anyway she’s going through

(44:23) security and the older one is coaching how to do it and then the older one says I I’ll take you down to the gate that’s all organized and I’ll show you what to do and don’t worry about it I’ll take care of it and it’s kind of nice I I think and I’m thinking okay this is great they’re going to be fine but as they turn the corner they just turn the corner to walk and they wave goodbye I see that they’re holding hands a right and I’m thinking you know I’m think it’s I’m I’m

(44:52) sort of uh I’m trying not to get teared up at I’m tearing they’re not even my kids yeah but they will be you see this is it we can have that situation because that was based on um on hours and hours of playing together if they had have been on tablets I don’t know I’m not sure I was driving back in the car um with my wife and I’m and I’m doing the math and I’m doing that seven and a half hour math thing if they had seven and a half hours on a screen now they didn’t have screens growing up very much at all very

(45:26) limited screens use and even if they had have watched four hours a day right half MH uh from the time they were 8 to 18 they would have actually seen 15,000 hours their give or take of screen right but they spent that most of that 15,000 hours together yeah right so when they turn the corner and they’re holding hands um um I’m thinking later that’s the result of endless time not separated and doing stuff on screens that the time something there about time again and look the last one this is a big answer to a question sorry but

(46:10) Mercedes it’s your fault because it was and we’ve got a few more for you after this so to push on is um but is this core thing right at the middle he’s not a connection to Nature it’s not a connection to friends it’s not even a connection to family right at the core of it is a connection to yourself yeah that’s it’s it’s to your own values so that when stuff happens and and life gets rough tuning in instead of tuning out exactly and someone’s treating you bad and you’re

(46:42) thinking do I stay with this right you know how like these core decisions that kids will make teenagers drugs being offered do I go with this do I not um those core decisions that’s all about self connection to self but screens deliver you messages that you’ve got to be like someone else yeah it’s particularly I find this is particularly powerful for girls is that you get all these images of you got to look this way be this way say this way move this way and that’s what that’s what’s that’s

(47:19) what screens give a lot of now I’m not again I’m not green a little bit of that okay but but it’s power stuff yeah for boys it’s all about being tough being mat being just a whole imagery that and can boys really get in touch with just true and strong feelings if if they’ve continually told they shouldn’t have them right right um so there’s there’s there’s this connection to themselves whatever that’s going to be who knows which is also like the the ability to focus as well so do you think that that

(47:57) um um this rise of ADD ADHD and depression because of all all of your connection to self do you think that screen time on the rise is why all of those things are on the rise we did a we actually did a study into that and it’s one of many many studies ton of them are definitely pointing to the to um kids having uh trouble with with focusing and hyperactivity um it decreases as screen use decreases it rises social emotional issues rise this was in a study uh probably the best one is called learning habits if anyone anyone listening wants

(48:32) to sort of follow this up it’s in learning habits where I think there was like it was thousands and thousands and thousands of kids were tracked over a long period of time and that they found a a direct link between the rise of screen use and the rise of ADD and the rise of social emotional behavioral problems what we found in our study is that when we um negotiated screens out of kids lives and just gave them a more simple and Balanced Life their um their uh add after it went they went from chronically a and I use

(49:07) the term add but I I think honestly using the term deficit attention deficit is is not it’s not great it’s not attention def it’s unregulated it’s unregulated it’s excess and it’s unprioritized yes that’s the key to me is the kids attention is just fine but they’ve but thinking about pizza in an algebra lesson and algebra is has being relegated to two or three and and a and understand that that their attention is fine but it’s all misappropriated because screens do that a lot they flick images backwards and

(49:45) forwards and backwards and forward and of course it goes into also like red 40 and sugar and all that but it’s like the screen it like it changes the way their brain reacts and oper and their emotions but what if say someone’s listening right now and um they’re waking up to this but they’ve already they’ve already given their kids because I know you work on um non-prescription um when it comes to behavior um say they already have giving their kids Aderall or riddin or whatever the safest form that they can

(50:16) find um and they’re waking up to okay wow I need to change their life style as well um what’s the best thing they can do well look to to you guys are asking really good questions um we need more time with you we might need a part I have two more big questions after this so all right so all right so so this has got to be nutshell right look all kids are quirky right they’ve all got their quirks that makes them that make them lovable and kind of infuriating sometimes right but they’ve got they’ve all got their quirks over

(50:53) you know years now of working with this one thing that I’ve come to understand understand is that if you add quirks to if if you add a bigger pardon un unrelenting stress to a child’s life that Quirk will slide along a spectrum and become problematic and if the stress still continues it’ll become a disorder but all a disorder is is an inflamed Quirk child that just so yeah yeah exactly if a child’s a really busy kid right then not a sitting still kid thoughtful in that way not in terms of still thoughts they think while they’re

(51:33) moving they literally think on their go gets yeah way putting okay and they think through doing was this saying think on your feet I love that saying because that’s what kids do not all but some do okay unrelenting stress to that kid’s life and they they’re the ones that are are are are really prone to to to being hyperactive if you have a kid who just loves things to be in order just likes things to be orderly no one likes things lined up you add unrelenting stress their lives obsessional you got it if you have

(52:09) a kid who’s um a bit feisty right um and you love them because they’re feisty you add UNR relating stress to their lives and they become uh Oppositional Defiant Disorder but here’s the thing and and Mercedes this perhaps goes takes your question at one step further is that what we found through our studies and we’ve got like a thou over a thousand Simplicity parenting coaches and group leaders around the world now so this is cross-cultural it’s one of the biggest parenting movements in the world but the

(52:41) examples that we get given are from all these different cultures is that if you you start to the problem number one is that is that stress has become The New Normal yeah too much too soon too sex too young it’s become normal it’s become normalized but when we were growing up it just wasn’t like that and and some people say well that’s just the way the world is now it’s not our the kids brains can’t cope with it and they go into fight or flight they go right and they go into what these add OD PDD OCD

(53:17) there’s no shortage of D’s you know a lot of D’s right but that I call that an emotional fever or a soul fever it’s a soul fever it’s an fever it’s not necessarily an illness it’s it’s it’s an exaggerated querk but if we give our kids cumulative Simplicity and balance if we dial their lives back a little bit just a little bit and we start to say you know I wonder if they really do need to do that that second travel team or I wonder if they really do need to have that that

(53:51) extra play date I wonder if and you start questioning this new normal of more more bigger and more and bigger and more and you start simplifying wherever you can I mean it’s whatever feels my my book Simplicity parenting it’s it’s kind of a weird book because it doesn’t tell you to do one extra thing a lot of parenting books tell you to do all this stuff this this actually suggests doing less it’s a lot easier right and through dialing it back you get your kids Quirk and and many moms and dads have said to

(54:26) me it’s it’s amazing when we just let them we gave them a little more time at home we gave them time in nature we gave them time then they they feel like they’ve got their little kid back many of them said to I feel like I know but the interesting thing is is that if we keep just dialing it back a little bit I don’t being weird about this but just sensible stuff dialing back screens just just that so we can feel a bit more comfortable with it dialing up game nights dialing up baking together just just hanging out

(55:05) yeah then our kids Quirk becomes their genius yeah actually their gift the weird thing is the same thing that is their disorder is also their genius yeah do you think that um weaning them off of the medic or the prescription is dire in that um turning that cork into genius well one of the studies we did a pilot study is we had um uh 23 kids which which we tracked um carefully tracked and uh it was it was around about 90% of them within four months when they’d been taken off adero riddling and and so on within four

(55:51) months they went from clinically add to being not to being they were still kind of rascally they’re still moving kids that’s their right but their kids and they’re just them again they’re now reachable teachable you can be they’re they’re doing okay and that was within four months wow so for me you know Jade to answer your question more specifically medication we got to understand that the United States consumes over 92% of all those medications in the world doggy R we have doggy rling right

(56:28) so but but medication I’m not again not anti-m medication it’s like scaffolding but scaffolding is not meant to stay there permanently right right you you put scaffolding up so you can get to a place where you where you make the repair and then you take it away so that the building the structure can stand independently yeah so anyone who’s listening to this whose um whose kids need that help with medication one of the things to start to do is just to simplify dial it back even if your kids object it doesn’t matter

(57:01) you’re in charge um dial it back simplify it just less screen time less books less Toys stuff um decut your environment yeah make Oasis quiet it all down a little bit yeah yeah because the only thing we can control is our homes we can’t control what’s going on out there you can control in here and and as you do that uh see a doctor and see if it’s okay to start dialing back the medication so as you dial up connection to those four things I was talking about nature friends family and self as you

(57:40) dial up the amount of time and you dial up those connections dial down the medication yeah and there have thousands of parents that have done that albeit under doctor’s supervision of course but that that is what we’ve been told over and over over and over was was was something to consider yeah I love that answer um so I’ve listened to every single episode of your podcast Simplicity parenting um and I love it’s your for parents because it’s only 10 minutes in episode so it’s perfect um but I I have two personal

(58:14) questions that I have not heard answered on your show um if you have time for them we don’t have to go super deep into them you ask them we’ll have a go at them and then I’ll I’ll I’ll record them on the show as well and blame you oh awesome okay um um so they’re from my own personal life um so the first one is um me and my children um their their dad and I are no longer together it was um sadly a very toxic relationship so what’s best is right now at least is no contact which is very confusing as you

(58:47) can imagine for the kids um and my daughter who’s um almost four she sometimes will act like a baby like she’ll regress um but a a big concern too is that when we um go back and forth with the kids which someone else will do the transition for us um when they go to their dad they they cry for me they just want me when they go to their um to me they cry for their dad they just want their dad and I I um what big emotions what sad you know situation for them and they often say I just want everyone to be together and we’ve been um apart for

(59:23) over a year now and this is still continued so I’m curious just in a situation like this what is the best thing that we can do to help our children navigate through the feelings I I don’t take it personally but I do um I I do feel lost on on what’s the best thing to say yeah that it’s it’s it’s tough it’s it’s it’s really tough one of the there’s there’s a um when you have um like when you have kids going between homes right you’re probably on some of the basic stuff which you you’re

(59:59) probably on to is is that in their little backpacks or whatever they’re taking to Dad’s place let them take their favorite the pillow they sleep on let them take it let that go backwards and forwards between them that the their favorite toy obviously goes backwards and forwards between them when things get better between you and Dad and they will one day they will you know is if if the story book that they’re being read the story that being read that can go backwards and forwards so they get the same story uh at Dad’s as they get at

(1:00:32) Mom’s and you start they start to have they what they want is this is they so heart rendering said we just want everyone to be together but togetherness can have different forms and if they start taking for example a story and you’re reading them Winnie the Pooh one of my favorites right so you’re reading them winie the Pooh and and he he feel and he he’s he’s trying to get the honey out of the out of the tree and he has an idea to get a balloon and float up you know that doesn’t end well for wi as we

(1:01:04) know but and then you give you give the the the the book and you put a little marker in it and then dad reads the next part it’s sending a really powerful message to kids and I don’t know would dad be into that would he would he cooperate that may I ask he would at least say that he would so let’s hope yeah why not hope right and particularly if the children ask for it right yeah um but as But as time goes on you can start with little things like stories really little most moms and dads will will will do that

(1:01:43) particularly if the children are asking for it and so you start I’m a big believer in just small and doable rather than asking too much of each other just that just little that’s why I love your work it’s attainable yeah it’s so it is it well it would be weird if it was complicated being about but um but you know like a pillow Daddy can we put our can we put our pillow here and it might even be one they take from Daddy’s house it doesn’t always have to come from Mom’s because as dads

(1:02:18) often we feel that we’re not as good at this as moms are uh we we get that message it’s usually true but the um not always but um but maybe the pillow on their bed from Daddy’s house comes to your house you know and and they sleep on it and they take it backwards and forth little things little little things we have this saying the United States don’t sweat the small stuff but with stuff with things like this it’s it’s all about the small stuff yeah it’s literally small stuff a little

(1:02:51) some kind of sweet little thing that they like to have by their bed at night goes backwards and forwards but here’s where this is actually leading to Jade is that eventually if you can build it up one of the things that really secures kids is when The rhythms in one home so like you know like you have certain rhythms of like when you wake up the kind of things you do and their dad will know about that he’s been gone a year but he still knows the way things were he still knows the rhythms in your arm

(1:03:21) and and maybe he’s established new rhythms in his home that’s good too that’s all good this of things but if you can establish similar rhythms so the children um uh like um one mom was saying to me we always before every meal say a thank you to the farmers there little children and they say thank you to the F for the food do you okay so um it might be um that uh your former partner your was band um uh uh could also say the same sort of little thank you to the farmers it might be that the um that that the way they get ready for bed and

(1:04:03) the funny little things that they do in the bath that happens same in both so that you start establishing because for little kids that’s their world that’s their world their world is that stuff and if they can sense see they’re looking for to togetherness yeah and and you can’t be together with with Daddy right now you know that’s just not going to happen and so on but they can get a sense that my mommy and daddy do things the same they’re both caring for us and that that they’re friends even though even though

(1:04:41) friendship might be hard right now they get when when when little kids see if you think about when you watched your how how may I ask how young your youngest one is uh three and a half three and a half all right perfect because when you watch your three and a half play year old play they they go through solitary play where they’re just playing on their own they’re just little they’re tiny and they’re playing with their fingers and with a little toy or whatever but they’re not really relating

(1:05:08) it’s time infants but but around when they grow up a little bit they start what’s called parallel playing where they’ll play with a truck and they’ll go right up beside another child and and the other child will be playing with the truck and they’ll be playing with the truck and they’re not really playing together mhm but they but they are paralleling right that is a play stage and it’s a very it’s a well-known obviously called parallel play it’s a well-known play stage when Mom and Dad

(1:05:39) can parallel even over little things then children recognize it because that’s the play stage they went through or they’re in you see the psychology yes so and that will help secure them and and have them feel good about things now doesn’t have to be that that a mom and a dad or or a mom and a mom like Partners have to um do exactly the same things because you can’t because that’s probably with some of the tensions there anyway right but if for the but my advice always and um is for moms and for partners to get together

(1:06:18) and say like a like these two circles that are overlapping and look at the bit we we know what we’re doing separately we know where we disagree that’s well charted territory we’ve been over that a lot well known what is it for the sake of the kids that we can do that where they can go backwards and forwards between our homes and sense that we’re paralleling we don’t have to be full on friendship playing impossible right now but over the years if you find those little tow holds it’s very meaningful

(1:06:51) because children live in the world of of picture thinking and symbolism they do that’s just what the way that’s their lives and when you do that that middle area like two circles overlapping and it might be just a little tiny bit of overlap but if you if if it’s doable like a thank you to the farmers or like a pillow that go like a story whatever that’s why I mentioned these really small doable ones over the years that gets bigger and bigger because Dad sees and mom sees or um the partners see that

(1:07:24) this is really good for the kids and that they are not so sad yeah I love that beautiful you um the second thing that I sorry good luck with that by oh thank you thank you um the second thing that I wanted to ask about that um a lot of people um when they found out I was interviewing you um that we were on the show that they had a question about was Blended families um because it’s such a big topic sometimes there’s you know Big A gaps there’s a trio of kids where one kid is left out um sometimes the couple

(1:08:00) has different parenting Styles and different expectations when it comes to food and lifestyle um there’s just a lot of different personalities in the mix that maybe the kids won’t like each other maybe one of the kids won’t like one of the adults you know things like that how does the stepdad come in without stepping on toes so there’s just so many factors that can make it so messy um and if I could summarize everyone’s questions that they sent me it would be what is the best thing that the adult can do for the children in

(1:08:27) this type of this type of transition yeah yeah oh you know good um good good word if I may say transition right because it’s a it’s it’s a slow transition this one it really is a slow transition and actually that’s a that’s a a great way as we as as I know we’re getting to the end of our time together that’s a it’s a really neat way um to to to end because it does sort of um encapsulate a lot of what we’ve been talking about actually is one of the things if you got a blended family two families coming

(1:09:00) together one one of the things to do is to really um sit down with the other partner and and talk about what are the rhythms that we can establish that we can have in common values is also important to sit down and have a value conversation just the two of you where do our values overlap like that’s an important conversation to have I get that it’s a great one to have but it’s often people are on to that think most of us know that we’ve got to talk about that sort of stuff even before we take the decision to bring the two

(1:09:36) families together there’s a yeah but one of the things that’s a little more hidden is is this thing around around having the kids like let’s say um your your kids um let’s say my kids are really used to um uh the same age let’s say I have a three and a half year old uh I’m a young dad my kid uh is is um used to going to bed and just falling asleep whenever they fall asleep I’m into that kind of thing right your kids or your kid is has a bedtime that’s pretty rical right so what do we do

(1:10:20) about that and and the the this is where the um the conversation can get um very real and very helpful is that we agree okay so let’s do it this way each day let’s I’m going to compromise little compromise little okay so bed times for our kids that are similar age are going to be this let’s say they’re a little older and there’s homework when do when do you do homework with because when we’re getting together with with our our our partner it’s sometimes um interesting to know how how little we

(1:10:54) know about their rhythm with their kids yeah right so to say when oh and you might say well my kid does homework as soon as I get home from school and and and and I might say well I always have a snack first because they seem to do way better when their blood sugar levels are better and then you might say huh that’s a really I never thought of that look okay let’s and we we come to this kind of compromise about um the two partners come to this compromise and then they do that but not just to compromise as in compromise but as a

(1:11:30) rhythm and so that’s now what’s going to happen each day and again they’re small things they’re little things and that’s what goes on each day getting that stuff getting the sort of regular stuff worked out like that like what are our what are our little rituals going to be like we were saying before about thank you to the farmers do we say that at the table or do we not um one parent I’m not making this one up one parent was uh said a um a prayer a blessing but you know really talked

(1:12:04) about the spiritual Dynamic another parent wasn’t particularly comfortable with that so they came to that middle middle ground my S I was working with these my suggestion was you can guess a thank you to the farmers and and the kids were little and a thank you to the Sun that makes the the corn ripe and I gave them a little kind of verse to you and they said yep we can agree on that one mom said as long as we keep the god stuff out of it the dad said well you know maybe we’ll talk about that later but I said yeah guys talk about that

(1:12:35) later but for now this because the kids need to know if you’re intending on being together and you decided on that then take the things you can agree on and make it rhythmical because again that gives the kids the message it sends the them the message that you two guys are together and we can’t play you off against each other because that’s in a lot of situations what happens the the the the the parents end up getting played off against each other and you love her more than me one parent will start overcompensating with the kids of

(1:13:11) of of their partner and and then their own kids start saying why do you give them so much and me me and so on and all that stuff starts up what you can do is just get it together with your daily stuff yeah when you do it how you do it and start right there that’s been um uh really helpful to a ton of parents when they’ve kind of just lowered the expectations of what a blended family is but you just don’t go into it thinking okay we’ll just I don’t know we feel our way it we’ll wing it and that’s that can

(1:13:46) be a disaster actually right yeah I feel like growing up in my household that was a disaster and I grew up in a blended family you’re just forced into it without a Choice there was no rituals you know there was nothing that made me feel safe in that home because nothing tied it together really it was just a mush poot of everybody’s annoyed with each other and I imagine when you do those rituals it causes the rest to fall together the kids want to get along the kids want that supplement uh supplemental parent

(1:14:17) because it’s only an addition instead of a subtraction oh that’s yeah that’s a perfect Mercedes if you if you can imagine growing up in a family that did that do you think that would have made a difference not so much what do you think Mercedes yeah absolutely I think my biggest core issue today as an adult is born of course from my childhood traumas and that’s around safety in the household and feeling like I couldn’t your father didn’t choose you because of that exact situation actually yeah or

(1:14:49) exactly and if I could have been more like if one of my core wounds is my father not choosing me over my stepmom it’s because we didn’t have a situation in that household where I felt like she was a safe person for me and she very much wasn’t a safe person for me but of course there’s all kinds of other things that convolute that situation um but yeah I think I think the rituals that you’re talking to right now like putting together a kind of a system that this house is expected to work under would

(1:15:17) have made me feel like at least I know what to expect instead of I don’t know what to expect so I don’t even want to come out of my room you know yeah well you know we we talk a lot about kids being safe and secure but one of the best ways to S secure a kid is to have them know what’s coming next and then it true and then they know what’s going to come after that yeah and it comes true that actually really um on a body based level calms a nerve it calms the whole nervous system down yeah yeah yeah

(1:15:48) because otherwise I you end up someone later who felt like they had no control over the circumstance when they were young and now you’re a control freaking never knowing you’re around the corner yeah you’re over controlling exactly but you know the fact is if you know you’re overc controlling because that was going on you’re already you’re already a good way out of that I’m working on it I’m working on it we having people like you that are helping change yes this is therapy for us um can we end every show

(1:16:18) with a couple of uh lightning round questions but I was curious if you had time uh for one question about um sexual abuse uh with children um so I came from a family that has a history of sexual abuse and um I because of that I can be easily alarmed and make things red flags when the reality is kids are just curious about their bodies and um I wanted to ask you how do we talk to our kids about sexuality and their bodies in a way that doesn’t Peak curiosity or cause shame but that also makes them feel like they are free to express

(1:16:51) themselves and feel confident to have firm boundaries at the same time that’s probably one of my hardest things I’m navigating it’s a really a great and big question and I’ll try and just encapsulate it little bit and this is not going to cover all the basis of this of course um one of the things um that I found really really helpful about about kids in terms of their emerging sense of self it’s not just about sexuality it’s a sense of who I am in the world if if we want to do if we want to have a child

(1:17:28) emerge into their bodies without shame um uh into that into the gender without shame and I’m now talking about gender fluidity as well um we’ve got to give that the basic security and safety of home life in order to do that because a lot of the world out there is pounding on kids it’s like I’ve worked in war zones I know War zones I’ve worked in refugee camps but it’s it’s like there’s an undeclared war on childhood going on yeah and one of the things that we can do for kids emerging sense of sexuality and SE and

(1:18:10) self is to have a safe harbor at home a place where they’re not going to get pounded with images of the female body for example that are totally objectified you know or they’re not going to get pounded with all these these images of like I said before of how you should be um and to comply and you got to look like this be like this talk like this dress like this that’s that’s toxic to a kid’s sexuality and and sense of self because their sense of self is going to be as gorgeous and as different

(1:18:45) as there are kids and it’s not going to be Comm we’ve got to got to really prevent our kids from having that commodified and so giving them a place that is relatively low screen um uh where screen stuff is really watched carefully and and they don’t get screens to take into their rooms and right you know that that the screen is in a public place right um giving them a place where they’re not just Wicked over scheduled really strongly over scheduled where they never get a chance just to decompress giving them a space where

(1:19:21) there’s lots of predictability like we were talking about before Mercedes that then gives the space for their sexuality to emerge in in in the way that it will but it’s theirs it’s not what they’re being told it needs to be then and and that in that sense um the the parents who give their kids it’s almost embarrassing to say but giving children a space for childhood just giving them a space for it is one of the ways they that that little seed that little tiny body that you borne into the world you know and you held in

(1:20:01) your arms in those first minutes there’s they’ve come into the world to do something like I I don’t know about about you Jay but I was expecting Harps and golden lights and Angels but my my first child born into the world looking me in the eye saying can you handle me yeah she’s she’s almost rolling up her sleeves saying are you because she’s strong she is strong and you know are you going to be able to cope with me and giving her space um to go out there in the world do what she’s going to do but

(1:20:37) come back in again and just decompress like like she would she goes out into those stormy seas of life and you know I know it’s a bit of a cliche but kids do but do we provide them with a safe harbor where they can come in and provision repair rest it’s not like I’m I’m not suggesting we keep our kids from the big world I’m suggesting quite the opposite is that when they go out into the big world that they go out feeling strong and that’s got everything to do with emerging sexuality that’s so much more simple

(1:21:13) than I expected so thank you all right so like Jade mentioned we have a few short questions we like to end the show with so if you could help hug your younger self right now what would you say um if I could hug my younger self right now I would say Well done dad a oh that’s so sweet if you could have the whole world read one book which would it be we need the Poo yeah so good or more appropriately the Deo of poo I’m curious because of your previous question were you concerned that you were going to fail as a father and that’s what led you

(1:22:06) to your work were you nervous about that almost the almost the opposite I had a dad who went through uh the war went through the depression um and he came out the other side of it all loving and kind and and gave me an image of fatherhood which was just beautiful and I came to recognize as I leared more about the war and the terrible things that happened and the depression and that he was a little boy in the depression and was starving you know and he was homeless at 14 and uh that um yeah that what an incredible

(1:22:47) thing he did to find that space within himself to be such a kind and very present dad so yeah there’s generational I get it there’s generational abuse and there’s generational alcoholism but there’s also uh generational Simplicity because we led a very simple life and he gave that to me and it was generational presence it was just very very present for me without being intrusive particularly as a teenager not intrusive but there yeah love that if you could whisper one phrase to everyone on the

(1:23:22) planet what would it be um it would be the phrase of the Dal Lama I guess and that is um be kind whenever possible it’s always possible I love that you’re like the Dal Lama of the parenting work don’t touch I’ll take it thank you you know you read his work and it just feels so simple and that’s um that’s what I love about yours so before we let you go where can people find you and your work um they can find the work that I’m bringing and I don’t mean to be GL but within all of our

(1:24:10) hearts because that’s where it lives it it truly lives this this this wish to give our children a childhood is something inside ourselves it’s it of course I know what but I forgive me I know what you’re asking it’s the best answer [Music] um the uh is at Simplicity parenting at the website Simplicity parenting.

(1:24:32) com and we have you know we have a lot of support a ton of support and you know um all kinds of stuff going on there that if you want to simplify and balance out your kids life there’s all sorts of support there because sometimes we can feel a bit counterculture and a bit weird because you because you look at your extended family and they’re not doing it they’re just just sort of weirdly overscheduled you look around the neighborhood and everyone’s just going crazy so sometimes you do need an extended family around the world to give

(1:25:06) you the confidence to slow down a bit yeah love that thank you so much um something I love so much about your work is it’s not just changing people’s lives it’s literally changing their children’s lives which is just a ripple effect and it’s going to continue far after you’re gone so I really really I’m just so thankful for what you’re doing yes you’re my kids will never meet you but you’re you’re you’ve changed their lives so your legacy is definitely leaving a

(1:25:33) Trail of Light Behind you thank you yeah it’s it’s such a privilege speak to you both and and just just um yeah I I just many blessings on your work right the world needs it thank you so much thank you well um we’ll let you know when this is going to air and um I don’t think you have social media like Instagram and stuff but we we’ll post it all up on there so we have a we have a Facebook site so let us know and we have a we have an ews that goes out and that has yeah getting yeah that’s getting close

(1:26:07) to half a million wow open so it’s yeah this is this is something that is it’s not about the Simplicity parenting book because it’s an ugly little book I don’t know if you’ve seen it but it’s really I have it yeah cover is ugly the writing is too small the paper is nasty it’s although it got a second edition coming out soon but it’s not about that it’s about it’s about we know this is an issue we got to do something about it yeah beautiful well we’ll send all the info to you when it’s coming out

(1:26:40) yeah you guys are great you guys are great send us the and I’ll get that out to our community oh thank you so much we’re so excited okay we’ll talk to you soon anytime again let me know okay thank you thank youim we have don’t tempt us with a good time yeah Jade will be sending an email directly after this for part two you’re thank you thank you so much we’ll talk to you soon bye by bye bye bye refreshing yes I loved it he really did feel like um uh you know when you’re around a monk

(1:27:22) it makes sense because there’s their life their whole thing is Simplicity Simplicity yeah yeah like whenever I’ve been around a monk it has this like different feeling it’s almost like you’ve gone out to Nature you’ve gotten off the grid you know and it’s like they carry that energy about them and when you like shake their hand it’s like it’s something it’s so powerful the feeling that you get when you’re around them and I that’s how I felt just looking at him he just carries that so I think because

(1:27:48) it it you know I was I wrote a magic trick the other day um which I’ll use on I’m going to use it on a coming episode but um it told me how to or the the the trick is how to remember what we learn and I think that’s what monks are good at is because they you know yeah they’ve spent so much time on the the subject that they are most passionate about usually obviously with a monk it’s usually about how to literally simplify your life to a means so that you are not grasping for material items and you are not you know

(1:28:25) living in that realm of of materialism um and you have more peace available and you’re present and all that so but whatever you’re trying to learn and absorb whe whether it’s parenting or or anything else I think what that tool or that magic trick um gave me in the research I did for it was when we can grasp all this information it might come in through books and podcasts and all this stuff but then we can hone it down we we memorized it enough you know and I give you some I’ll give some ideas of

(1:28:58) how to actually get that really stuck in our brain so that we not just are um seeing the information and feel like we have it in our brain but we can actually relay it to the world in a way that is so clear and concise that someone else can understand it that’s hard I’m excited hear that that’s what monks do though you know they basically have integrated so well and they’ve absorb the information understand it like yeah that they’re able to then just in a few words give it to you where you’re like oh yeah I get it that’s

(1:29:28) beautiful and that’s what Kim Our Guest today I think was doing for us so what about your magic trick for this one yeah so today um my magic trick actually comes from our guest Kim today and Jade you’re the one who mentioned this to me because um well I don’t know that you knew when you’re mentioning it to me but it’s something that relates a lot into my life uh and I don’t I don’t have children but I have relationships and this can kind of go with any type of communication you’re trying to have in

(1:29:58) any type of relationship whether with children or loved ones and this isn’t about your husband but I’ve had plenty of partners that were like Teenage Sons so yeah for sure uh so this works on all the inner child and all the people that you meet but uh this magic trick is to not use two of The Three Stooges in any one sentence so to clarify The Three Stooges are these three words you always and never you always never so we don’t want to use two of those in one sentence at any time because it’s can be it

(1:30:37) basically will not communicate what you’re trying to communicate and it’ll probably end in some disruption um yeah so you want to avoid them even used separately but especially in conjunction with each other because they’re very accusatory and sharp and like I said will likely be met with resistance so for example let’s start with the word you so when you’re talking to anyone especially a child and you’re saying you it can be a bit cutting if you’re using it in an accusatory tone so

(1:31:06) instead we would replace it with we or us I try to do that even on this podcast I try to say we instead of you because it’s non-aggressive and I just I don’t like when I see a message on Instagram where she’s like you need to do this and you need to do that I’m like well do you think you’re better than everybody like you got to do it but when you exactly it takes the away when you’re like we need to do this and it’s like it feels more first of all I’m all about things feeling

(1:31:36) attainable it feels more attainable because I feel like oh you’re gonna do it too okay I’m with you exactly it’s funny you say that because whenever I write an Instagram post I write it all the way out you know if you follow me you guys and Jade you know my posts are sometimes very lengthy yeah like my magic tricks yeah uhuh um so when I write it out though I’ll often have all these eyes because it’s coming from me you know and it’s and I’m also saying you should do this and if you do this and it it just comes

(1:32:04) out of me that way and then I have to look back at it and go how do I soften this and how do I turn on my femininity because I’m you know coming from being masculine instructional commanding now how do I make this inviting enough that people will actually want to do it and I think a lot of that is like what you’re talking about when we create the we in it when we say you know this is my experience it’s coming from an eye place and that’s that’s okay we can all accept that okay she’s talking about herself

(1:32:30) that’s not offensive to me yet but when I am demanding you or commanding you and saying you should do this that’s like they’re like hey I want to say in this so agree when you make it a we thing or us thing it makes it so much softer so you know like what we’re talking about here uh you might say something like instead of saying um something with the that commanding you you might say something like why don’t we we see how we can make that better or let’s see how we can do that um there’s no sense of

(1:32:59) condescension in that and if you catch yourself saying you like if you’re like oh it just came out or this is a parenting episode I don’t know if I should have said that word but um if you if if you caught yourself you’re like ah I already said you a couple times you can say I need to be more mindful of this as well that kind of like at least closes it up as a we yeah or uh I often say things like saying this to you as much as I’m saying it to myself because it’s that’s really good you know because

(1:33:29) I do catch myself shoting on people a lot uh and it’s always something I need to do myself so so now okay if we’re talking about using the word always just to go through these three different Stooges you know these three stoe words so the word always or the word never where we might be using a phrase like you always speak to your brother in a negative way um you know obviously if you have a kid that might be something you’re saying I probably am saying something like you you know always do that and it

(1:33:57) really annoys me or whatever I’m saying to Chris which he calls me out on all the time um and it’s not completely true right we no they don’t always talk to their brother in that way or he doesn’t always do that thing that pisses me off I’m sure there’s plenty of times he’s not doing that so first of all it’s not not completely true so we shouldn’t be just saying blanket statements like that that aren’t true but also um it’s so accusatory it makes it hard to accept

(1:34:25) for a child or for an adult for that matter so if we can replace that word always with often or sometimes which would begin to soften that a bit so we might say something like this sometimes comes up and it’s really hard for us when it does or this happens often and it isn’t Pleasant right it’s a much it’s softer so it’s going to be much more likely to be first of all true and much likely much more likely to be heard by the other person so I think those are important ches and then just to

(1:34:55) specifically talk on the word or speak on the word never as in you never listen to me why don’t why do I have to ask you five times you never listen to me which I think gets said to both children and adults um and I’m sure we’re all guilty of that at some point so again it’s creating kind of a dead end for yourself because you’re painting yourself into a communication Corner because think about if if the child you’re saying this to hears that phrase you never listen to me they’re hearing it like well then what’s

(1:35:25) the point you already think I never listen to you so why would I start listening to you so it’s feel devalued yeah yeah it’s exact it’s calcifying an already hardened situation so the alternative to that would be we could adjust it and say something like I like you were talking about earlier you’d use an i instead and that might sound like I get really uncomfortable when I feel like you’re not listening to me okay that’s right I would totally soften to that I’d have accept that way over you

(1:35:55) never listen to me so okay so um we want to stay away from using those you know two of those three stooges in any one sentence but let’s say you accidentally do like Jade was saying earlier there’s some ways that you can recover and firstly now that we’ve listened to this magic trick we will be better at able to recognize when we’ve used one or more of those three stooges and then at that point we can say what I meant to say was so once you’ve said the you always this or you never that you would repair that as soon as

(1:36:30) you hear yourself say that take a moment stop and say wait I need a minute let me reframe what I was thinking and what I was trying to get across to you and you would use the phrase this very powerful phrase which is what I meant to say was right so that all that y’all hopefully will help you in speaking to your child someone is trying to repair that give them credit and be open to it don’t you know because I feel like a lot of times when we’re like well what I meant to say was and there you know someone

(1:37:01) can easily be like well that’s not what you said you know like at least if if you see someone making these efforts that Mercedes is talking about like do your part and be open to them and allow them that space to grow yes exactly and that’s the thing is if you can take the moment that it takes to kind of calm yourself from from where you were when you were saying that one of the Three Stooges the I always or you I mean you always or you never um that moment you take will hopefully calm you down or slow your heart rate

(1:37:31) down like Jade you were talking about earlier and allow you to come back and say that sentence you know what I what I meant to say was and then communicate what that is from a more heartfelt space and I think that heartfelt reframing will be accepted in the way you want it to be or much more likely be uh receive the way you want it to be so and it’s obviously you’re just trying to figure out how to relate something that’s important to you but we just this is a way we can become better at communication and that’s what this is

(1:37:59) all about so yeah yeah um and I know that uh Kim John Payne has an episode on that it’s like 10 minutes long and it’s different than uh what Mercedes just said but it’s the same theme so um if you felt like that really resonated with you and it’s something you want to work on you can go listen to that episode his podcast is called Simplicity parenting and my magic trick is is also from um one of his episodes and I don’t I don’t know which episode but you should just listen we should just listen to all of

(1:38:32) them um I invite you to join me in listening to um I listen to them as they come out because it’s easy they’re only 10 minutes long but one thing that really really stuck with me um was how especially for me I put a sense of urgency on everything and if say Mercedes you send me three things about about the podcast and it’s a time that I normally connect with the kids because it’s right before bedtime for some reason there’s something in me that feels like well I need to answer mercedes’s three text or I need to uh

(1:39:06) finish this grocery order like whatever I’m in the middle of or whatever’s calling on me I for some reason give this it the sense of urgency which I do with most things in my life that I’m that’s something I’m really really working on but if if I’m working on those things because I feel urgent and my kid comes to me for something I always tell them to hold on I never put I I rarely put my phone down and say um sure honey I and then in my head I’ll come back to that in a minute because really what is it

(1:39:36) going to be five 10 minutes probably maybe it’s even going to be 30 but in reality in the big picture of it like that can it can wait yeah um and also think about the reaction of your child long term they can either remember that like you were always busy yeah and they felt less important they felt like you were always preoccupied or they can feel like wow I’m really important my mom sat that to the side and it’s not always going to be possible but when it is it is going to be lasting for your kid um

(1:40:11) you know imagine like when you’re with a partner and they’re just always busy they’re always have something that they have to do um but imagine when like you say something to them imagine the reaction when they don’t even look up from their phone and they just tell you just uh hold on or they just put their finger up they’re like give me 10 minutes yeah or my husband who constantly wears ear pods and never never hears anything I say or pretends he’s not hearing it because he has the ear pods in as an excuse so think about

(1:40:40) how that makes you feel I always compare uh Partners to children because for some reason we tend to have it tends to be more um understandable for I don’t know why maybe we relate to them more since they’re adults but um imagine though how you feel like oh man whatever they’re doing must be really important more important than what I yeah you know am coming to him with but imagine if he immediately when you came to him set his phone to the side did whatever had whatever conversation you needed or

(1:41:09) answered your question or embraced you whatever and then went back to that you would feel like so valued and so um I feel like prioritized yeah absolutely I totally agree my kids I really don’t want my kidss to grow up feeling like they were they weren’t prioritized yeah they weren’t important yeah yeah and so then I have this feeling that comes up in me because that’s beautiful and for sure I think parents out there are doing just what you’re talking about and neglecting you know the fact that they

(1:41:40) could set down their phone and hold their child or really understand what the concern is and whether or not it is important or if they just need to be seen and heard for the moment or whatever um but what comes up in me is where that becomes a slippery slope and the kid is now like okay well that’s how I get my well no yeah you’re not making it a child centered like the child runs the show not not like that but so you’d like maybe you would explain you’re not you’re not throwing routine out the

(1:42:09) window yeah you’re not like throwing routine out the window and like um if they’re throwing a fit you you know like I think there’s a balance to everything but for me someone who works from home and is always on my phone because of it I think it’s it’s something that if I applied it would make a huge difference in my home and I think there’s I think it can be applied without being taken to the extreme yeah I think there’s a way to and I’m just trying to figure out what the way is to apply it and it might

(1:42:38) be setting aside certain hours of the day that our work hours mommy’s goingon to be on the phone and then certain hours of the day where first I one time raised my voice at Soul because he kept asking for something every five minutes he would ask for something and I was like can you just give me 10 minutes because I was dealing with something with you in the podcast and then I realized like that poor freaking kid like I just raised my voice at him because this could have waited till after bedtime so that’s that

(1:43:07) day I said okay from now on from 12 to 2 no phone and from 5:45 to 6:45 no phone and that doesn’t sound like a lot but it is in my home because I’m with them all day long um but no one is going to be able to do this 100% so if we at least try to apply apply it it’s only going to you know uh balance us a little bit more so I like that you’re using the phone as an example to just because as a kid I’m thinking when you see a person talking to a person you’re like okay I’m not supposed to interrupt I won’t

(1:43:38) interrupt and I’ll wait okay that’s a visual obvious thing but on the phone you’re like well Mommy we don’t know what Mommy’s doing or when it’s with you know my husband for instance I don’t know what he’s doing so I don’t know if I’m interrupting him in work mode because he’s you know Works through his phone a lot as do I so yeah it’s it’s also the fact that we don’t even know what the other person is doing they might be just scrolling in the gram or

(1:44:01) and we’re always assuming ah they’re just doing some lazy I don’t know that’s what I’m always yeah maybe that’s something I have to look into myself well we’re all a work in progress yeah we are okay you guys thanks for listening we hope you found this conversation as enlightening as we did and as refreshing if so please share it with your friends and family this would mean so much to us and you never know you know the parents around you you never know what they’re struggling with

(1:44:30) so sending this to them it could um benefit them in more ways than one remember also that you can go to our Instagram page at the magic hour to ask us or any of our future guests a question talk to you guys next week until then be a light