Chill Like a Mother Podcast
This show shares stories, offers tips and tricks, and provides education to help you feel more chill like the mother you know you want to be.
Hey! I'm Kayla Huszar, a creative counsellor who's all about unconventional therapy that encourages creativity, curiosity and finding what makes you feel alive (again). I've helped so many women navigate the waves (ups and downs) of motherhood, and I'm here for you, too!
So, if you're feeling overwhelmed or need a moment to yourself, grab your headphones and press play on an episode!
You're not alone, and you already know what you need.
Chill Like a Mother Podcast
From Instagram to Real Life: The Truth About Gentle Parenting
Tired of the perfection trap that social media sets? We’re here to bust some myths and keep it real. In this episode, we’re diving deep into "gentle parenting" with Olivia and Anneke from Canadian Perinatal Mental Health Trainings.
We’ll explore why gentle parenting isn’t about being “gentle” all the time but about being flexible and adapting to your family's unique needs. From managing regulated anger and messy conversations to dealing with financial stress and raising neurodiverse kids, we cover how to navigate these challenges without losing your sanity.
Authenticity and self-compassion are the real secrets to effective parenting.
Tune in for a nuanced conversation and fresh perspective on gentle parenting, and leave with practical tips on creating a parenting approach that truly works for you and your family.
Don’t forget to grab Kayla Huszar’s 101 Ways to Chill Like a Mother ebook to discover more ways to take care of yourself while rocking motherhood. It’s time to embrace your authentic parenting style and ditch the pressure!
Meet Kayla Huszar, the Host of the Chill Like a Mother Podcast
Hey, moms! I’m Kayla Huszar, and I’m here to help you calm the chaos in modern-day mothering with expressive art therapy. As a creative counsellor, I support moms who feel stuck and are looking to regulate their emotions, reduce anxiety, and tackle stress and overwhelm.
SOCIAL WORKER | EXPRESSIVE ART FACILITATOR | PERINATAL MENTAL HEALTH
Join me on Instagram for more tips and inspiration. And thank you for letting me be a part of your day—even with the kids running amok! If this episode helped you feel a bit more chill, please leave a rating or review. Your feedback helps the podcast reach more moms who need to hear it.
Good morning. Well, it's morning for me. It is 845. And I am coming in hot. We are in no childcare summer, even though this is going to air in September. I feel like it's. That's the energy I'm running today, and today I am joined by Olivia and Annika from the Canadian Perinatal Mental Health Trainings and we are going to be talking about gentle parenting.
Speaker 1:Maybe, we're going to go talk about the dark side of gentle parenting, and we're going to talk about all the ways that sometimes we don't do it the way that Instagram tells us that we should do it. So I love to start with fun facts about my guests, and I would love for you guys to share something that is not about motherhood or not about what you do for work, whether that work is at home or work at an establishment. My fun fact that I like to share with people is that in the pandemic, my anxiety was really high and I could not take reading new things, and so I just reread Harry Potter for like three years, over and over and over again. I think I read it five times. All six books, just back to back, that's all I would read. It was very predictable. It was a very lovely way to fall asleep. That's just what I did. It's very predictable. It's a very lovely way to fall asleep. That's just what I do. Olivia or Annika, who wants to share their fun fact first?
Speaker 2:I can start first. My name is Annika. My fun fact for today is I love reading books, but I don't buy books at all ever. My library, my public library, is literally my library. So if books disappear and I want to reread them again, I'm really upset by that because I'm just like you got rid of my book. Don't do that. And also, I have never bought anything of amazon, which I think is really great. But I have to say my husband does the buying, but it's very rarely and I will sometimes say maybe we need, but he is the one that actually initiates and goes like I don't do that. I hardly buy anything online. I'm Dutch, so I'm cheap. I don't buy things.
Speaker 1:I love that you have never, bought anything on Amazon, really truly, yeah, I've never done that yeah, and not anywhere else.
Speaker 2:I don't always think that's a good thing, because I want to buy things for myself. So I have gift cards and stuff, but I never spend them on myself and I just give them to people as like oh yeah, birthday gift for somebody.
Speaker 3:I'm really bad at that okay, note to self, don't buy Annika a gift card. She's just going to re-gift it.
Speaker 2:I'm going to be very happy with it, but very uncomfortable because I have to think about things.
Speaker 3:Can't spend it at the library, so okay, next time I will get uh the librarians to like throw you a party and I'll be like I'll sneak in a little bit of celebration for your birthday that way. Um, so my fun fact is that when I was in grade eight, uh, I became the Scarborough shot put champion for the whole city. So, um, that is the highlight of my athletic career. Uh, but I threw a metal ball the furthest than any other grade eight girl in Scarborough.
Speaker 1:Amazing, amazing. Do you have like a good throwing arm, or was it just like coincidence that you happened to throw at the farthest?
Speaker 3:100% coincidence. I did no training. The way that it worked is that there was a track and field day, and if you threw the furthest at track and field day at my school and you went on to the next level, I went on to the next level, I threw it the farthest there too, and then I went on to the final level and I threw it the farthest there too, with absolutely no form training, like that's really what the magic of the story is. Is that I was just like destined to win the Scarborough Champion.
Speaker 1:that year Amazing.
Speaker 2:I need a t-shirt now with I know.
Speaker 3:Scarborough champion.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh my gosh, this is amazing.
Speaker 1:So, gentle, parenting, dot, dot dot, let's talk about it. What are your first thoughts when you even hear the word?
Speaker 2:gentle parenting. This is a very quiet moment here. My first thoughts when I hear it usually when I hear people, because I also do parent coaching, and when I hear it usually when I hear people because I'm also parent, I also do parent coaching. Usually people come with gentle parenting and then I'm just like, okay, you have ideas about this already and I don't really know if that's going to align with my ideas. But we do everything gentle parenting and I'm always like, what is that for?
Speaker 1:you.
Speaker 2:What does that mean? What book did you read? Which instagram account did you follow? Yes, I want to know that yes I don't, it's I have also.
Speaker 3:It's interesting when we all went quiet. I also have a bit of a like feeling when somebody says, like I am a gentle parent, because it does feel very loaded, I'm always like what does that mean to you? Much like Anika said. But I tell everybody that I'm like I am not a gentle parent. I don't know that I have a word to describe my parenting, but that was not something that like ever really resonated for me, cause I'm like I'm a lot of things in parenting, like sometimes I'm gentle, sometimes I'm dysregulated, sometimes I'm fun, like I can just be a lot of things, um, but I can't always be gentle so maybe it would be helpful, because I think a lot of people um find sanctuary in the term gentle parent.
Speaker 1:It, like it gives them a roadmap a bit, maybe when they feel confused or don't really know how to break the cycle from how they were parented to how they would like to parent. And I think gentle parenting can answer a lot of those questions or curiosities. And so, for clarity's sake, maybe we should define what gentle parenting looks like, or the philosophies or the tactics that are still within gentle parenting that we might still use in love. But maybe it's like the label of gentle parenting that gives that that like gut wrenching, like ooh, I don't know, like what does it mean? I don't know, do I have to do it all the time? Is there a right way? You?
Speaker 2:know like that piece of it. And that's what my major difficulty with gentle parenting because it is very clear about what it is not, but it's not very clear about what it is. So anything that is like, oh, it looks aggressive, it looks violent, I don't like the way that this parent is talking to their child is immediately then labeled as oh, that's wrong and I'm doing gentle parenting. I would never do that and I have a very hard time understanding that. Like what is gentle parenting? I would never do that and I have a very hard time understanding that. Like what is gentle parenting?
Speaker 2:And I feel for a lot of people, it's that 5% of time that you just really feel that you're in your parenting flow and that you're just like, oh my gosh, I had this amazing answer for my kid and I was so calm when they were going through that emotion and those feelings.
Speaker 2:But it is almost an ideal that lives somewhere outside of us.
Speaker 2:It's not really inside of us and it's very much what other people have made it up to be and how we understand it to be and and like olivia says that, gentle I don't want to be gentle all the time it is like like I feel like a gentle woman like you cannot address the hard stuff, you cannot just call out things, and that's not really who I am, even though I do align with a lot of gentle parenting. I'm just always. Sometimes I feel that from my understanding, because I'm very careful it's sometimes I feel like it infantilizes kids as well, because we have to tread so carefully around big things, Like we want to address it, but we have to address it with a certain voice and then say, oh, I understand that you're working through this right now and you can't just say this is this sucks, this is really hard, we're all having a hard time here yes, and annika, I think that my oldest is 90 and he actually gets really angry when I talk like that, like so I think there's also like certain temperaments, that also.
Speaker 1:um, what gentle, parenting is in the algorithm? When your kids are old enough, they actually some children will get really angry if you talk to them like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that for me, I think some of the words I would use to describe how like I wish or want to show up in parenting which is not me and I always do are things like authentic. And so there is a way in which sometimes you're like, oh, you're in your, like, I'm going to soothe you now voice, I'm also so angry, but I'm going to use gentle words, but you can feel it, you know right now that, like, what I'm thinking inside is not like, oh, you're having big feelings. I'm thinking like, shut up. Shut up and get out the door. We're 10 minutes late. Like it's already there, like in the space.
Speaker 3:And so I often think more about being like authentic and like relational with kids, and just this idea that, like, I impact you and you impact me, and just this idea that, like, I impact you and you impact me, and we get into things together and we can repair things together, even though I think that I think, if we like, found a like, a hardcore definition of gentle parenting, somebody would say, like, there is space for all of those things. But what comes up for me is the um uncontained child of like, no, no, we don't like to hit our brother, no, no, like it rather than like, stop it. Like you're not hitting him right now, that's, we're done here, um. But I know it's like just say no, though Olivia don't say no.
Speaker 2:Oh my god, I'm not supposed to say no is that like a no oh? What do you have to say? I can see you really want to hit your brother. Let's hit this pillow instead. That is just don't say no, olivia. You have to say.
Speaker 2:I can see I failed at gentle parenting already it is so true, it is, and I feel for a lot of people what I see. For a lot of people it feels to me when I see them or attempting at gentle parenting, I can just say you're fake and your kid knows that you're actually really angry and you're just trying there and kids pick up on that like it's not. Like if I'm going to sit there and say I'm so angry but I'm going to say I can see you're angry and let's just, you know, take a breather together and it I can't really get there, you know, because you have to stay with your child, you have to work through it together, instead of just saying I, I have had enough for now, I'm just walking away and I will be back. But you know, I'm really angry right now and, yes, it is also because of what you did. Yeah, but that's.
Speaker 2:Some people will say it's gentle parenting, but other people are just like no, no, no, you can't leave your child. No, no, no, no, you can't leave your child. No, no, can't leave your child, because you will say no to the parents and that's the really hard part for me. We can say so many things not to our kids, but they will say, very strong boundaries on what parents can do with their children. You understand, like that is that you know. That's why I feel that infantilizing things it's almost like kids don't really get it and you have to model them. But they get more than we think they do.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes when I was in the thick of navigating this. Like new, we get our information from instagram. Um, like I'm, I am old enough to remember a world where like that didn't exist. Right, like, and my kids are old enough that, like when they were, when my oldest was born, instagram wasn't what it is now and some of my younger clients, like they're like what, like where, like what did you scroll about? You know like what? Like what were you reading? And it was like that wasn't there. Like my, my Instagram feed 10 years ago was still like cats and food and people traveling. Like that's, that's what Instagram was, and it wasn't parenting. It was not parenting.
Speaker 1:Um, so, when I was in the thick of trying to navigate this, like the, the term gentle parenting was very new. Um, as for me, as a young parent, and um, I thought I had to prescribe to it, right, like, I thought that it was the only way to undo or redo the ways that millennials elder millennials had been parented and there really was no other roadmap. Right, and so it was very much. Like you start every sentence with yes, or you make it positive, or you know, you, you do this, that and the other thing, you stay with them when they are emotional. No timeouts, absolutely no hands-on parent contact. Um, and my child was about five and he was having a meltdown and I was trying to be with him and I just kept getting this is that he didn't want me to be there, right, like he. Just he wanted to do it on his own. And but I, I dismissed that within myself and I continue to stay and to kind of push for this, like let's calm down together, let's take a breather, let's be together.
Speaker 1:And after, after it was all said and done, we all, we both, blew up. It was horrible. Neither of us wanted to be in the situation, but I thought I needed to be there. Us wanted to be in the situation, but I thought I needed to be there. And after he said something to me, like you can leave me alone, like he's so emotional, intelligent, emotionally intelligent, and I just said, is that really what you want? He was like yes, I want, I want to be alone to process my big feelings. He's going to come back or he's going to call me back. Even he's five, alone to process my big feelings. He's going to come back or he's going to call me back. He means five when he. When he means I want to be alone, he means for five minutes. You know he wants me to be like close enough that I can hear him, but like not so close that I'm like in his face about it. Let's breathe, blow the candles. You know like it's.
Speaker 2:He literally told me he didn't want me to prescribe to that part of gentle yeah, and at the end of the day, we really have to, like, follow their leads as well as our lead. And I find, with a lot of these prescribed books, and then they're telling you, if you do it like this, you know like we're diving into impossible, but your child is going to be successful and they're all going to be great and they're all going to be so, you know, in tune with their feelings and they're going to be such great communicators. But not everybody is going to communicate feelings the same way. Not everybody is going to work, but somehow there's a lot of that prescribed. You know this is the script you have to follow and this is how it's going to turn out.
Speaker 2:And the promise of then having a well-regulated child, which you know, I think, what neurodiverse children is now? Like one in five, I think, like you know. So we're not taking that into account because we're all like talking about neurotypical. So we're not taking that into account because we're all talking about neurotypical. But now I see a lot of language when it comes to gentle parenting. All neurodiverse children are now the same too. You have to do it this way and it is just so sticky, because who are you then in this process, like what Olivia said, who is the authentic parent here? They're not there because you're just following. You know what? I don't know.
Speaker 2:Chantal says on an Instagram post who you know only shows you pictures of when things go well or when it goes bad, and then has a beautiful story how this was actually a life lesson and not, like us, when we have a mess, that we're just what happened. I don't know what happened here. There's no life lesson here other than this really sucked. This was just a mess. Something exploded. And there's no chantal, by the way. I'm just like.
Speaker 3:I'm just thinking of a name everybody's like what chantal gentle parent is this person? I should follow them. I think, in some ways, what feels like is happening with like the intergenerationalness of parenting is that when a lot of us are trying to gentle parent with our children, like, yes, we're trying to offer them some kind of safety that maybe we didn't have, but I feel like we're also trying to like gentle parent ourselves, like all those child parts, um, and I always think like, oh, you can just do that, um, but usually what happens is, in the quest to gentle parent, I'm going to give this to my kids. We're so mean to ourselves and it is like the op, I'm like you, but you don't gentle parent yourself, and I'm like, no, no, that's a. That's a bad deal. That's a bad deal Um, cause what has gotten lost? I feel like sometimes in the um, uh, like the over correction of like I had a really angry parent and so therefore, I'm not ever going to get angry. A, that's not really how it works. But we've lost, like the ability for regulated anger, like that's not allowed to exist. And I actually think that the big emotions, like our own experience of being able to like, have a range of like. You know, I think about the window of tolerance, like there's like up and down in that regulated anger, regulated disappointment, like there's so many things that, um, we have just put in the bucket of like, just don't feel that, just don't feel that, or, if you're going to be, you can express it to be like that's making me really grumpy right now versus that sucks, that sucks, that's it. We're done Like which is not mean, and not calling names, and not exploding and going away and never repairing. It's not any of those things. But I don't know.
Speaker 3:I'm thinking about what my family calls airport Olivia, who is a nightmare nightmare. And last year I took a trip to Mexico with my partner and my son and we brought his friend with us. And what was interesting, when I think about authenticity and parenting, is how my son prepared his friend for airport Olivia, my like 15 year old son, which is we're going to go to the airport. My mom's going to be a bit of a mess, she's probably going to cry, she's going to be a bit grumpy and snappy. You know that that's like not what she's normally like. It's just airport Olivia and like on the other side, it'll be fine. And I was like, oh, that's so, he knows me and all the things he said are true. But also, it's fine the airport Olivia like exists.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Kayla go no no, that was all I was going to say. I was just like, I was just receiving that as like, like unapologetic acceptance and authenticity in stressful moments.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I am just really and that's the thing too what I see a lot now and I don't know whether as gentle parent, because I think I think we are in the first generation that we really plan our children when we're going to and not everybody, of course, there's always oops, babies but we're like okay, we want this, we can have.
Speaker 2:Some say there's a lot of access to fertility, people are having children by themselves in different ways and building different, but that puts so much expectation then on the children and on who we are going to be, how we're going to show up with our children. There is no like I'm quote unquote only going to have two. So you know I have to do this right. I don't get like a second chance. I'm not going to have four like my mom has, or I'm not going to do all that. So, having that all planned out, but also then that huge we're living for our children because I did the traveling, I did the partying, I had, like you know, interesting relationships with different people, I worked through all that Messy part of me is gone. We're going to do the series. I'm in my mid 30s now. I'm going to have two kids paste two years from each other by 40, I'm done, you know, and then we're going to have have the kids, and then I'm going to be like a full-blown grown-up and there's no place for the big emotions. I am going to live for my children and my children are going to have the childhood I never had. They're going to have the extracurriculars they I never had. They're going to have the vacations that you know I was always dreaming of. It's good, oh, and that's another thing. I'm really the people that travel the world with their children. And then the children are so flexible, they can do everything.
Speaker 2:My kid, you know my two, when my eldest, we were living in Jordan for six months and we were living with my mother-in-law and she was two and a half, and then we came back to Canada when she was three and you know fine, and she's like we're never going to move again and then went to school when she was four. She told the teachers that she had been homeless before and that we were refugees. Is that a phone call home? And that we were refugees? Is that a phone call home? And that we were refugees? Yeah, so I am just like no, that's not all kids and I hate how people are, like walking around, and and then tools like gentle parenting are almost giving you the promise like you're going to have well-adjusted children.
Speaker 2:You can battle everything as long as you're gentle parents, as long as you're. But it doesn't give any space for who you are, what you're bringing in, what, who your child is, what they're bringing, what their needs are, but also about the world, what's happening in the world. They can do all the gentle parenting, but if you know your, your housing is insecure and if you're working three jobs and you're really just trying to manage things, gentle parenting is not going to be the solution. You're going to have a hard time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I read an article Now I'm not going to be able to find this. I think I read an article I came across this somehow, I'm like I'll try to find it which was around some research that was done during the pandemic and like anger towards children and like interpersonal family violence and such interpersonal family violence and such, and in households that had a lot of financial insecurity or precarious housing, when we had the rules around like you can't evict somebody right now, and then we like gave people money because they weren't able to work, the amount of rage, stress, anger, abuse, like dysregulated anger abuse, went down in those families so substantially because that base tension of oh my goodness, I'm always trying to figure out how to survive was so significant that when that went away, people were able to show up with like a much broader range of like experiences and it made connection much easier and I think about that a lot. It's easier to be gentle when you have housing and food, like all those like, when you aren't constantly stressed around survival.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes. And one of my older family members had said something really interesting to me. We knew that there was a big income gap between us, our household and their household and she was expressing some tension and stress around finances. And I just kind of looked at her and was like I don't understand this, like there is a very large income gap here and I don't understand. And her words to me have sat with me for almost a decade now and she said, kayla, it doesn't matter the job you have or the job security or whatever.
Speaker 1:End of the month, we probably have the same amount of money. And so managing her debt load or their lifestyle or their expenses was very stressful for them and they probably could have made some moves and changes within that. But that's not what the conversation was about and it sat with me so deeply like we probably have the same amount of money. It's like okay, so that that stress of financial security can happen at every level, way more felt, felt and way more polarized when we're talking about going from, you have to work three jobs and these are just non-negotiables for them, but that people who lost their jobs in the middle of the pandemic, who are making six figures that level of stress in a household when they have to maintain a home and a vehicle payment or whatever that stress is so impactful on the whole family, or when parents bring like a history of financial trauma.
Speaker 3:Even if they aren't making enough, it can never feel like enough and I often will, uh, talk about I watched the Paris Hilton documentary that she did around. Anyway, her story is actually quite interesting, um, more interesting than I was anticipating, um, because she was essentially like kidnapped and sent to these like really intense, you know, work camps for bad kids, um, but she was almost a billionaire and it was not enough. She lived with a constant fear of running out of money and not being able to financially support herself and I'm like a billion dollars is not enough, right, like yeah, yeah, but the urgency around, the survival urgency, um, really gets in the way of connection.
Speaker 1:Or it can, yeah, and so for our listeners and some of them will be avid gentle parent ambassadors they might not still be listening, but let's just say they are. You just tore it all apart. Um, what, what? Realistic in reality and I admit I get caught up in this too what do parents do about this? Like constant consuming and influx of information around the right way to do it, always feeling like it's wrong, always feeling like it doesn't matter. I think the same financial metaphor that you just made I've seen happen in gentle parenting like a parent will just tell me a really successful moment and it won't be enough.
Speaker 2:They will still feel like shit parents like I don't really know, but I think as a society, I think first and foremost, we have to have more compassion for each other and for ourselves. I find that the narrative and you know, I know facebook is for old people, but there's still a lot of active facebook groups that people are calling family and children services or children aid or whatever on anybody now that doesn't look like gentle parenting. Can we get it in ourselves to just have more compassion? If we have more compassion for others, we can also start having more compassion for parts in ourselves that we're just like okay, this, this might be me, because I feel often the narrative is I don't want to know this person, I don't want to know, like you know, if I have compassion for that, that means that I don't. I'm not a gentle parent thing.
Speaker 2:Gentle parenting happens in a vacuum. It doesn't happen in real life like the hundred percent and everything it happens. And if we are perfectly parenting our children, we're not preparing them for an imperfect world. So the moment you start and that's what I always say with parent coaching the moment we mess up with our children, it's actually one of the only roles as a parent that no teacher is ever going to fill. No uncle or grandparent is ever going to fill. It's just saying you know what I just did or how I reacted to your feelings. That wasn't really the right way to do it. I'm sorry, I really apologize, you know, but being able to repair that and just really trying to model how it should be, have been doing differently and but not being scared of making the mistake and actually looking at it, this is one of the most important lessons that we're learning together as a family.
Speaker 2:You know our children are going to be scarred. You know they're going to need therapy but everybody needs therapy, like you know, in some way or peer support, but everybody needs some kind of support in life because we are not supposed to live in a bubble. We're supposed to live in community. We're supposed to share. We're supposed to you, you know, walk to the well and get the water and complain about you know how, how we're not feeling well, but we don't have these spaces anymore that we can do that, and there's so much you know of that. It has to be perfect.
Speaker 2:But no, you cannot show up with your 22 year old at their job interview because you're scared that the manager is going to hurt their feelings, unless there's special needs. I'm going to say, if your child has exceptionalities and that is appropriate in that situation, yes, but for the quote unquote Typical child who's 22. On the brink of adultness you probably should be able to let them go. They probably should be able to deal with that because you have done worse with them in the past and they are able to label that, work through it and you don't have to be scared that it's automatically going to be a trauma because you were traumatized the automatic that, like default, like everything that I do is a potential moment for trauma, like that mindset alone.
Speaker 1:So damaging, yeah, like in, like to yourself, like to put yourself under that microscope every single moment. Is that future casting, olivia that you talk about? Like parenting in different timelines? Right, like I'm parenting now to avoid my child having to go to therapy when they're 22. I want my kids to go to therapy.
Speaker 3:To go to therapy, I want them to be vulnerable enough and safe enough and and assured enough that they will reach out for either paid or unpaid or peer support in the future, Like yeah, and it makes me think about, um, if people want to identify as, like, a gentle parent, like, please know that you get to be that, because I, I almost want to separate the idea of I want to orient my children in a gentle way from, um, you know, gentle parenting, tm, which is like, here's the language and don't say no, and all those, all those different pieces. Um, because somebody once said to me that like, oh, you're a gentle parent, and I was like, does you mean because I'm kind to my children? Like, is that what this is? Are they lumped together that like, if I'm kind to my children, that means I'm a gentle parent? Because that's not how it feels for me.
Speaker 3:But there's a piece that I think both of you were alluding to are brought up for me in the again, the relationality which hopefully is like a long relationship we have with our kids around um, our distress when each other is distressed. And, uh, there's something that as my kids got older cause I have one adult child and one almost adult child that felt really important to me around tolerating what happens when we disagree, when we are disconnected, and it does often feel like a lot of the like I need to co-regulate and soothe my child when they're younger is like I actually just can't tolerate the distress of their distress. I need their distress to go away, which feels different than orienting to your children in a way that is like thoughtful and gentle and like cause. Then you do get to like not show up, always great, and then repair, and I think I didn't realize that until we got to the teen years of how important um, um, like the messages around communicating with my kids around, like like we don't agree on that.
Speaker 3:I don't want you to do that, I don't like that. You have to start making decisions, like your own decisions, not safety things, and you're going to have to tolerate that. I don't like it, I would do it differently. And like you are going to have to tolerate that, I don't like it, I would do it differently. And like you are going to have to tolerate that and we can do it. Because as you grow up, you're going to have to make more and more decisions on your own and I may or may not like them and you may or may not like my decisions. But how do we stay connected within that, which also feels like a really important piece here yes, it's home.
Speaker 1:The tolerating of the distress is something that I witness um a lot in my, in my clients and once, once they are able to tolerate either their children's distress, their partner's distress or their own distress, the pressure to gentle parenting sometimes just fades away.
Speaker 1:I think one of the gentle parenting PM tactics is that you must always be regulated and your children must always be regulated for you to be doing that, do right, when in reality, regulation is the ebb and flow between states of of regulation and arousal and stress and all of that. And you're supposed, your life is supposed to feel like this, because if you're just like this, in in straight baseline all of the time, nobody ever gets upset, nobody ever is distressed. We always talk like this and everything is okay. That is masking, like that's not actually feeling the real emotion that's right in front of you and it's not saving our lives.
Speaker 2:Right like when your mother-in-law comes at the door or says I'm there in 15 minutes. You need to feel this stress in order to clean your house better than you could do in 20 hours and suddenly you can do it in 15 minutes. It's literally saving. We need to be dysregulated it because you know we can pull our kids from the streets when a car is coming if we're just like, oh, I'm all calm, you don't have that adrenaline rush. Literally we need it. It keeps us safe.
Speaker 2:But I think we're so scared. We're so scared to feel feelings because it's constantly labeled, it's constantly said oh yeah, but this is how much, and only then and only when your girlfriends you can, you know you can have like laughter and like peeing your pants kind of fun and not around your kids because you know they're not going to really see you as the adult who is in charge and who can kind of like coach you through life. I think it's really, and I and I think that there's also really it's a very racist aspect to gentle parenting as well as in, you know, it's really only white people that do it right in the end of the day, right Like it is often, you know, the vast majority of people that are blogging about it, but a lot of like cultural things, like, for I'm married into an arab family. My kids always complain they're so loud, they're so present, they are like in your face and I'm just like, yeah, yeah, it's not. It doesn't look like gentle parenting, but at the same time, most of their children are growing to grow up, going to grow up to be valuable citizens and they're going to do things and they're kind people and they, you know it is not a recipe that is just going to give success to everybody.
Speaker 2:It doesn't work the same way and, like Olivia said, there's some really important things there. You know, as in good tools for people, good ideas to work around, but you have to make it your own. It has to make sense to you and you don't have to do. You know, follow the handbook from A to Z, pick and choose. If it feels to you, let it go. It's not for you.
Speaker 2:If the language doesn't align, change it up. You know? Um, there's a lot to be said to curse in front of your kids, because it's very good language. Actually, there's a lot of research around cursing and a gentle parent would probably do that. Yeah, there's a lot of language. It's actually very rich language. They say there's a lot of you know, expression in that, and do you want your? And also for us? I just read, like research, that you know all this anger that especially mothers, or those who identify as mothers or not fathers let's put it that way we are living with a lot of anger that we're not showing and it's actually aging us. So if we're constantly oh, of course, you know, let's, you know, make a fort in the bedroom right now, because that's what you want to do and I want to like expose you to all these different textures and tactile experiences, experiences, and I'm tired and I'm really fed up. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Actually.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or you still have to work, yeah.
Speaker 3:And I don't want to, but like I don't. There's a lot I can't remember who speaks about this, but like finding ways to like connect into fun and play with children that like are actually fun and playful for you. I don't want to build a fort at all and that's a yeah, just another really big piece here. Like everybody knows about my hatred of like imaginary play I don't want to be a dog, I don't do that but a lot cause like I often talk about being an inside person and I find other people who like to go outside to take my children like camping. I don't want to go camping, I don't ever want to go. Okay, I don't just want to do that.
Speaker 3:But the piece around again, authentically, like it's easy and authentic for me to connect in with you when we like. Authentically like it's easy and authentic for me to connect in with you when we like I don't know, when we are like playing board games together, like that's it. When we read side by side on the couch, like that is like a meaningful way and like talk about what we're reading, that's meaningful for me. But going to the park and like watch me, watch me, watch me, watch me Like that is not an easy way for me to connect with the kids, so I can do it, but I have different expectations of myself when.
Speaker 3:I'm like come on your sunscreen, on don't throw sand, like it's just a really different experience and I will often reference um Donald Winnicott's book the good enough mother. Uh, this is one line that I really like from that book, which is your kids want to get to know you, not the like you that you think you are supposed to be in parenting. They actually really want to get to know you. And in the same way, we can hold lots of people with complexity, like our partner, like partners, our loved ones, our friends. If, right from the get go, you are also allowed to be held with complexity in that relationship, I think that it actually makes it like safer over the long term long term.
Speaker 2:I've never read that book but I I do like I do look quite a lot of parent coaching and that's one of the things I always tell people and they're just like I don't really like doing these things. And I said, how can you bring in things that you do like you know, if you don't like to read like the same book over and over, why you don't bring a book about sloths? It's sloth is a topic that you like. Enthusiasm is infectioususiasm is infectious, especially with children. If you're just like I, really like that. I do it all the time. My kids, you know I completely brainwash them Not really, but like I, it isn't.
Speaker 2:If I like something and I'm really passionate about it, it's interesting to hear something I'm not going to do constantly going through the same, oh the same books. Let's read something that I like to read why not, you know? And it doesn't? Yeah, and that's that getting to know parts like to really value yourself as well. You don't have to be, you know that, that one-dimensional gentle parent. You are so much more, there's so much more to you, and I am sometimes worried when I see those gentle parents that are really, you know, wearing it almost as their identity. I and I've seen it on Instagram bios I'm a gentle parent of three kids and I'm just like there's more to you. You know where's your passion, where's the thing that you don't like at all Like. Where is that showing up?
Speaker 3:And often I find that people who are I think we talked about this last time uh, if they feel like they didn't have a very strong parent map and it's really scary. This is where um throw in any label here, like unicorn parent, dolphin hurt I know there's a lot of different like language out there, but I find that that's when people really like want to hold on tight is because they have a feeling of like I don't know what I'm doing and this book seems to be backed by research and so I'm gonna like follow this book. Hence, like gentle parenting TM, versus the other things where we're sort of talking about um, um, where you get to also be, also be you yeah and.
Speaker 2:I find that, and I find that a lot with people that are new to canada as well, that they're just like I don't understand this.
Speaker 2:So they're either, and that's and that's what I'm really scared of, like when we're talking about the, the mother mafia or whatever they call like and it's not. I'm not saying gentle parents are, but there's, there are people who are both to put it that way right who are very judgment, that they are both, to put it that way right who are very judgmental that they are not going to public spaces with their children because they are scared that people will be making comments, making phone calls, labeling them, because they are louder, because they know that their children have certain behaviors and they don't really know how to deal with it, or they deal with it in a way that they know it's not really accepted. So, literally I know people that I don't go to malls with their children because they are so scared that people will call on them because they let them wear a leash, for example, because they're just so scared of losing their child.
Speaker 1:But if your child isn't yeah, needs to be on it or they will walk away if you all right.
Speaker 2:If you're black and you don't speak the language very well, that is a very scary thing to do. So then they're staying home and they're not showing up in the early year center and they're not showing up and then they go to school and then the school is going to say your child hasn't really been socialized and that is really scary because we become so narrow-minded in what parenting should look like and I'm not saying this is gentle parenting. These are just the general parenting messages. You know and I have worked for public health for a long time but there are huge consequences to co-sleeping with your child.
Speaker 2:If you are a young parent, if you are a young parent who is not white, if you are somebody who, who is unhoused at the moment, who has to stay in another kind of accommodation, it there are huge consequences to it. And then all the you know other people can say, oh, but I sleep with my child all the time and yeah, it's easy for you to say that. Right, because you know you live in this fancy housing, you've got everything and even if you have some financial issues, you're stable, your situation, you're not waiting on approval from other. You know institutions, whether or not.
Speaker 3:You can access certain services the surveillance the surveillance, parent surveillance, how we surveil ourselves, how we surveil others and what happens when that surveillance comes from. And then systems that have power to um impact your family system. Yeah, but like this is the the piece around um I know when we joke about um you know being on instagram and stuff um and like how silly and sometimes ridiculous it can look when people are like doing everything right.
Speaker 3:But I often think that the trickle down of how that gets interpreted, the amount of fear that comes from like this is the right way to parent. Look, I backed it by science. I think it causes so much anxiety, so much anxiety yeah, and it's a brand.
Speaker 2:People don't understand that this is a brand. These are not real people. Everything is done for, you know it, and even the people that are really, you know, I find the people that are, you know, showing their authentic selves. Yeah, it's curated authenticity, you know. Oh, look at what a mess my house is. I don't see pubes in the sink. You know I'm no, I'm just being honest like it's cute.
Speaker 2:Yeah, leave me on the instagram yeah, like, oh, look what my mess in my house and I'm just being compassionate to myself and I'm looking at the mess and I'm saying I've seen worse. This is just paint, you know. You know what I mean? Yeah, yes, I'm not saying that like, if you go to my bathroom now, there's not a lot of, I'm coming over right now with your go to my bathroom now, like anything but I'm just there's not a lot.
Speaker 3:I'm coming over right now with your mother-in-law to see how clean your house is.
Speaker 2:My mother-in-law passed away. We're fine.
Speaker 3:You can go. But, it's true, this idea of like, how are like other parts of like parents allowed to show up? I think that we might be, as a parenting generation, really confused about that, around how to integrate all the different um, all the different parts, cause I think that, like most people would generally align on, um, I don't want to be rough with my kids Uh, we can, most of us would probably be pretty clear on that um, but how that gets played out in the complex of like our own histories and our own life stresses and our children's personalities, um, in the way that like, sometimes it's like easier with one kid than another, just based purely on personality, I feel like we're trying to figure something out right now.
Speaker 2:That is really really hard and as parents, we usually know, yeah, and as parents we usually know what. What would work with our child. But then we still want to believe in that myth of if you do this, it's all going to be better. Just pay for this course. She's going to tell you.
Speaker 1:I'm going to give you the roadmap.
Speaker 1:I'm going to give you the framework to managing managing this, like not feeling it, not processing it, managing it, and I think that's like like language that we use and like never before in parenting history have we had so much information coming to us, and I think people were like looking for the how to you know if you've gotten to this point and you're still listening, you are looking for the how-to you know. As a as a counselor and coach for moms, I would say do less of looking out or scrolling or seeking the answer and spend time. Spend time with you. Spend time without, not without screens.
Speaker 1:I don't mean to like villainize screen time, but like spend time just with you, feeling in your body, in your brain, messages in like just literally looking at your child and taking what they're saying for face value, without trying to diagnose or fix or prescribe or change or manage. Just like Seeing them right now for who they are and looking in the mirror and seeing yourself for who you are and starting to quiet that noise of what you should be doing or what everybody else is doing or what everybody else is valuing. Like Olivia said, just be you. And I know the word authenticity is getting a bit of a rash online right now as a buzzword and how do we actually do it? And you know it's like boundaries was the buzzword for a while and now be authentic is the buzzword now. But really, if you check in with your values and then check that against what Gentle Parenting TM is trying to get you to do, for some people it aligns.
Speaker 1:For some people it aligns For some people there's like a magic match there and you're going to be able to do it and your kids are going to respond and you're going to be the partner on board and it's going to be awesome. And for other people, there is not a match here and the values the values is more important than what Gentle Parenting TM is prescribing to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And what feels important, as you say. That is just how many times I've seen what happens when often a mother takes on like I'm going to really dig into gentle parenting is that she then becomes the gentle regulator for the entire household and that just looks awful of. Um, I'm now regulating like everybody around me all of the time and don't uh, don't even ask about, like what's happening for me in this, but like also we're often regulating partners and partners, relationship with children and just like trying to get everybody to be regulated all the time.
Speaker 1:And I've seen that go one step further out from her is then trying to regulate how everybody else interacts with the child or her or partner or whatever that looks like. And then those people are also being asked to prescribe to that three-step process and if they don't do it then there's like boundaries and no contact, like in the like the most extreme cases. Then it's like I can no longer have contact or we can no longer have contact with mother-in-law because she they them refuses to prescribe to what we are prescribing, and I am not a gatekeeper for gentle parenting yeah, yeah, and I see them.
Speaker 2:Partners relationships as well. I see a lot of parents that say, oh, you know, my partner can't put child to bed because you know they don't align with my way of like doing bath time. I don't like the way they do bath time so, and they don't want to follow my way of bath time, so I have to do it all by myself because I have it all thought out and this works for me. And then the thing as well that I often will try to like talk to parents about that children need different people in their life. They need people in their life that communicate messy. They need people in their life that are very loving and giving.
Speaker 2:And because this is the real world, you're not going to have a copy and everybody is going to deal with you in the same way.
Speaker 2:There are going to be people that you know they might not constantly, you know, go over your boundaries, but they might push the boundaries a little bit, and that's actually great if you have people in your life who can do that in a way without you feeling like, oh my gosh, this feels very icky.
Speaker 2:You know, it can be hard sometimes a little bit, but not like we're not doing anybody any. There's no benefit in having only people around that are putting centering everything around the child, which I find very scary. Very scary because in the end of the day, I hope to have a long life where parenting is not one of my you know main activities throughout the day. It's this is a phase in life, you know, when parenting feels like 24 7. I'm always going to be a parent, but I hope that one day I'm sitting in a senior house and I'm always going to be a parent, but I hope that one day I'm sitting in a senior house and I'm just watching weird TV shows and I don't have to worry about whether one of my kids is having an emotional breakdown. I hope they have people in their lives that they would turn to before they would turn to me.
Speaker 3:Yes, I heard a story recently of somebody who was talking about she's adult children and the way she was framing the story was my adult child. I am always her first call. Isn't this an amazing relationship that we have? And I had such a different reaction to that and I was like, if I am constantly the first distress call for my adult child, I feel that would make me really anxious to be like, where are your people, where are like, where are your, your friends, like, like, where are the other people in your life to support you right now? Like, I definitely do not want to be the only emotional support for my children. That makes me really nervous, or that would make me really nervous for sure. Um, so I'm just holding that for um, uh, that ideally, we want our children's ability, as they like grow to, for them to go into deep connection, into, like other relationships. Um, I don't want to be the only one who can regulate my 30 year old.
Speaker 2:Oh, please notice, like that sounds like hell to me, sounds like hell.
Speaker 1:I'm like, I'm actually imagining a real life nightmare of like not being able to like live my life like you said, anika, as like an older person, just like enjoying my non-acute parenting years. That actually sounds like fresh hell actually if.
Speaker 1:I was. I. I want to be on the list. I want to be the person who's like informed, who who knows my kid and who who knows what they might be celebrating or struggling with. Like I want to be on the list, but at an adult age I don't. I also don't want my children, I don't want them to feel the pressure and and the expectation that I would be the first line, like the first phone number, yeah, and maybe sometimes I am.
Speaker 3:But the idea of like also your partner is there and also your friends, and also like also all the other things, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:And I think, too, like for a lot of parents like I, when I do like work with my clients in parent coaching, I always say I want to put the parents back in the parent coaching. It's not, we're not childing here and really putting yourself in there again. And please don't lose yourself. Don't lose anything you like to do. If you always enjoyed, you know, ultra marathons, it might look different. I wish I would know somebody who does ultra marathons. It might look different. I wish I would know somebody who does ultra marathons. It seems really, really dreamy to me.
Speaker 2:But I think that you know there's ways to bring that back in, if and don't lose your relationship with your partner, don't lose your relationship with your friends. It's okay, I'm really bad at this. I'm just, you know, preaching to the choir, which me, because yesterday I was going out with my partner and we were just like, oh, let's do something. In the end I said we still need to buy birthday gifts for the birthday parties. So then we went to buy birthday gifts for the birthday parties because I knew that it's anyway going to happen, and we were both not really in a great mood. And then he's like here we are again and I said, yes, there we are again in toys at us, which is hell, hell, and it's too expensive, and I always order off amazon.
Speaker 3:It'll come right to your door because I don't.
Speaker 2:And that's what exactly what he told me said, why we didn't go on Amazon. And I said, I'm not finding stuff on Amazon. We're going to a store, we're going to get something. And then the thing did you buy enough? How much did they give you? How much is this worth Can we just? You know, yeah, there's so many expectations there. And then in the end of time it took away from our partner to partner time, because it never ends and we don't let it end because in the end, you know, we're parents now. We wanted these children. They are, you know, the bane of our existence. We're literally centering our lives around them all the time and we're not doing them any benefit by constantly doing that.
Speaker 3:A friend of mine's mom. The line really stuck with me. I don't know when she said it. I think she said it to me after I became a parent and she's a boomer, but it's a really great line around.
Speaker 3:I don't remember the context, but she's like what I would tell my kids is like you're not special. You're special to me, yes, special to me, but like in the world you're not special, and I remember that really stuck with me because, again, this idea of like I want everybody to be gentle with my kids and I do oh, let me be really clear. I do Like, when somebody's hurt my child, like the violent thoughts in my head around, like what I would like to happen to that person, are like extreme. But that really stuck with me in a way that, like through the years, if somebody would come into my children's life, like my, when my kids had a, really I really hated the principle I don't even remember all the context around it Um, and I really put it back on them to be like you are going to meet this person again You're going to be in a position where somebody has like institutional authority and you and you don't want to do what they want you to do.
Speaker 3:You're going to be here again. You've got to start figuring it out Like this is a relationship that exists in the world that you're going to have to have some strategies around, um, and like the letting go of that with um, uh, I mean, this was probably in like grade grade eight. But the letting go of that to be like, hey, kid, you're going to be responsible for your own relationships, you're going to have to figure it out, is a hard piece to let go of when people are, you know, jerk to your kid yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 1:Having said what we said, and for for the people who stayed long enough for the whole message what is your favorite go-to resource skill tactic? For those who don't want to prescribe, where can they go? What is your favorite thing to tell people or resource to give them when they are in this place of? I don't prescribe to this, but I still want to be a good parent, you know. Whatever good means to them, what is the thing?
Speaker 2:that you tell them. I usually what I tell parents is to to write down what do I want my child to be when they're grown up and then figure out whether or not what you're doing right now is actually getting them there, because a lot of gentle parenting is not really. In the end of the day, most parents want their children to be kind humans right, who are citizens and do things in this society and are active in that way, and then you can let go of a lot of the stuff, just really say is this what I'm doing now? Is that actually helping reach my ultimate goal, or am I just adhering to what I think I should be doing because people tell me that and and then you know how, how long your children watch tv during the day is actually not going to stop them from being kind humans right, how you know. Yeah, like like. Actually it could help depends what they're watching. If they're watching really, really good like tv shows and not labeling good as in good, but like TV shows that talk a lot about feelings and stuff like that, it can actually make them more empathetic. Empathetic, whatever that word is, it's beautiful, I can type it. So that's the thing. Sit with yourself.
Speaker 2:Parenting should not always be hard. You know it's way easier if you follow your gut a little bit more. Borrow things and things that feel aligned to the way that you want to do things. Use your language, you know. Use the richness of the things that you grew up with Not everything For most people. You know there's people with the most traumatic childhoods. For most people, there are still some things in there that feel important. It's okay if your childhood was 70% a mess and you don't want it. But there's 30%, it's okay to borrow from that too. It doesn't mean that your child is going to be you. None of your children are going to be you and you need help. Everybody needs help, and it's a skill for your children to learn how to ask for help, because if you've never done it, it's maybe because your parents never done it as well.
Speaker 3:I don't know. I will pick up that a little bit. I think one of the things again the answer of like, look to yourself. Because one of the lines I'll often give people is what does Anika think about that Like? And so in those moments of like, am I doing this right? Am I like? What do I do with this? To be like, what does Olivia think about that? Um, because it's just good to know what you think about it. Even if it's I don't know if I really believe in this, but I want to test it out. I'm like that's pretty clear. Um, even if it's a, I really believe in this and I it's going to work and our family is going to be calm all the time. Now I'm like okay, so that's what you believe about that Um, at least you know that going in, uh, and I had one more thought, which now, of course, I've lost Um, oh, the some, or I use the metaphor sometimes of like um, when you're taking in like parenting advice or parenting information, to think of it like trying a new food, and so if you're like at a restaurant and you've never had something before, or like somebody's made you something that you've never had before, you're going to like sit with it.
Speaker 3:What do I feel about this? Oh, this is a new texture. I'm kind of into it. I don't know it's bitter. I don't really like bitter. You might take a bite and say gross, spit it right out. This is the best thing I've ever had. You want to swallow it whole, but imagine like just that space of time of like when it's in your mouth and your palate to like just explore it before you just like swallow something whole that you've like heard about in the parenting space, so you can like take what you need and leave the rest.
Speaker 1:I love that metaphor of like, treating it like, treating it like food and and when you don't like it, you don't have to eat it, you don't have to swallow it, you don't even have to go to that restaurant anymore. Like and that's. That's the beautiful underpinnings of like, authenticity or, you know, having your values at the at the forefront instead of a particular parenting philosophy, is that you get to lead right. You get to lead in from your values, or from your heart, or from your gut, whatever that, whatever that looks like, and and I pretty much guarantee that if you do that, you naturally the natural good, positive consequence is that you feel good enough, you feel like you've done the best you could that day, or parenting roadmap, and you fuck it up.
Speaker 1:Then you have shame and guilt and all kinds of things about how you handled it or how you moved through step A through B, right. And when you lead from values or you lead from curiosity or whatever word you want to put in there, I have found that that has made the biggest impact for parents who have anxiety, depression or like just constant distress or stress in their bodies, like arousal. That stress response, that leading from value to leading from authenticity is the antidote to all of that, yeah.
Speaker 3:And the nice thing with the food metaphor is, like I have tried multiple times in my life to like tomatoes. I don't like tomatoes, I just don't like them. Um, but you're allowed to like tomatoes, I like. Love that you want to eat a like tomato cheese sandwich, um.
Speaker 2:So what works for us doesn't always work for others, and that's okay too yeah, and another thing, and that's completely not related and and I don't want to make this longer than it is but you don't have to like your kids. You love them, that's fine. There's ages and stages and they get just like. I don't really like this person. You're not cruel, that's okay. You love them most of the time. You love them. You don't have to like them. They are really. They can be assholes, all of them. We can be too, that's okay.
Speaker 2:We can be too, we can be too yeah yeah that's it yeah, and it's and I think there's a lot of and I think the gentle parenting a lot of it comes from that guilt and shame feeling, as in, I don't like my children enough, I'm not doing enough for them, I don't like this behavior and I have to fix it. No, it's okay, don't have to like it, deal with it. We have to respond in some way, shape or form. Have to respond in some way, shape or form. But maybe your child is always going to be quote-unquote, lazy or quote-unquote like you know, smelly or you know, not caring about personal hygiene the way that you would like to them to. That might just be them, and fighting it might not really be helpful all the time. Sometimes it goes, sometimes it's a stage you just have to work through it and sometimes it's just them. They're not like your life partners.
Speaker 1:I could talk for hours, I know. And so at some point we gotta clap the clap the booby clapper and and say cut no, that's good.
Speaker 3:I have a meeting in four minutes, so actually this is perfect timing, um, but thanks for having us. I hope we don't cause um your gentle parenting community to send you like angry emails no, no.
Speaker 1:that's exactly why I want to start having these conversations and um, I've got a few more lined up for the fall because it's a perspective that I want to shed light on that there isn't just one way. There are so many other ways, and if you prescribe to gentle parenting and it feels good and it's the right medicine for you, then excellent. But if it's not the right medicine for you, then there are so many other different ways to do it, and it doesn't mean wrong or bad or that your kids are going to be sociopaths, like. That's not a guarantee in any philosophy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so some serial killers had great parents. I'm just saying like it happened. And also, your gentle parenting doesn't have to look the same as your neighbor. If you can have a completely different interpretation of it, and that's valid. You don't have to then start an Instagram account to get validation about the way that you're doing it. If you want to, that's great. But you know, if you want a gentle parent and this is what gentle parenting is to you and it feels good, go for it. It doesn't have to look like anybody else's way of gentle parenting.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Okay, okay, bye.
