The Strong Mom Podcast

Just a Mom Chasing an Olympic Medal: Overcoming Your Mom Guilt to Create Harmony Throughout Your Life

• Lauren Regula | Strong Mom • Episode 6

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Ever found yourself reflecting on the moments that make or break your journey as a parent? We're peeling back the layers on the art of parenting with a heartfelt discussion that bridges self-improvement with the joys and trials of raising children. Through personal narratives, including those from my own experiences with my daughter, we share how expanding emotional vocabulary can transform parent-child interactions and build lasting bonds. We also examine strategies for intentional child-rearing, and the profound effects of 'failing forward'—encouraging kids to see setbacks as valuable lessons.

Parenting isn't just about guiding our little ones—it's also a mirror reflecting our growth. This episode delves into the nuances of parent-child communication, self-reflection, and the balance between individuality and shared family experiences. Hear how honest conversations with our children, such as asking for their feedback on our parenting, can be surprisingly enlightening. We reveal how dedicating time for personal passions and self-care not only rejuvenates us but also teaches our kids by example, the significance of life's experiences over material possessions, and the importance of a supportive community in our parenting journey.

Wrapping up, we don't just talk the talk; we walk you through applying the principles of continuous self-improvement to everyday life. Our discussion extends to the impact of parental involvement in youth sports and the value of creating a safe space for our kids' adventurous spirits. By sharing methods for nurturing the next generation with compassion and understanding, we invite you to turn insights into action. Join our supportive community and explore tailored strategies for evolving not just as parents, but as individuals. Let's chart a course for intentional parenting that celebrates growth, resilience, and the delicate balance of nurturing our children's independence while remaining their steadfast anchor.

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Lauren:

Have you ever stopped and asked yourself what am I contributing here? I was scared. I didn't know what to expect. Mad, you're sad. There's no reason to kick them when they're down, because they're already there. The more you enjoy it, the better chance you have at succeeding at it. We want our moms to lead their families. Welcome to the Strong Mom podcast. I'm Lauren, three-time mom, three-time Olympian, two-time business owner and co-creator of Strong Mom with my fabulous co-host.

Dave:

Dave need, I need more uh intros like that. Actually, let's step it up next time Even better.

Lauren:

Fair, fair.

Dave:

Let's jump right in today. What are we talking about?

Lauren:

All right, Today we're going to talk parenting and some of the things that we've been discussing that we, how we approach parenting, different, since we have been kind of going on this journey of figuring out how to be, how to be better ourselves, and I do think our parenting has changed.

Dave:

I hope, I hope it's changed.

Lauren:

Yeah, good point. Yeah, and I'm excited to dive into it. We actually just wrote a list of things that we're going to rifle through today.

Dave:

Yeah, I think a lot of these things, the the biggest overarching theme, I think, is, uh, that everyone, us especially this is a work in progress, um, and I think just being intentional for us the things are important, I think are just being intentional, trying to be better, uh, and always kind of being open to reflection on things that maybe we need to unlearn from growing up or from the way we were parented, and things, um that we can do better.

Lauren:

So and evolve Right. I think I saw something where it said stop generational things that have been passed down. They might not be serving us anymore.

Dave:

Oh for sure, there's so many stories when we stop and think about it.

Dave:

So, it's interesting. So, as you're listening to these, think about things, like there might be things where you hear them and you're like, oh, that sounds awful, I would never do that. Um, or that doesn't make sense, right, honestly, like a lot of times these things hit you as like a gut feeling, like you'll hear something and I it's. This is how it's played out in my life. Someone says something that I'm not familiar with or I'm uncomfortable with, and my initial feeling is like repulsion in my gut. You know what I mean. And then, um, I've gotten better as I've gotten older, now that I'm old, to kind of sit and think like, okay, I recognize the feeling.

Lauren:

It just means that I've never thought about this before and never considered it, and so then, just being open minded from there, yeah, and the one thing I want to say, if you're listening, I say this pretty much every time I do any type of speaking engagement or if I'm giving a presentation where there's a lot of information, you know where I'm doling out a lot of information.

Lauren:

I will never forget when we were training, when my softball team, team Canada, was training for Tokyo, we would have speakers come in and talk to us, but our coach would always tell us at the beginning Remember, we are not insert, whoever was coming to speak to us, right, we have to maintain who we are.

Lauren:

So take one thing that can make us better in the context of who we are and how we approach playing our game, because it can be very overwhelming when someone comes in, say, if we have the soccer Canada coach, come in and they're awesome, right, they won an Olympic medal actually in Tokyo, the goal right, shout out to huge, uh, canada's, um, women Women's soccer team. But it'd be very easy to go, okay, write all the notes and say I'm going to do all of that. Well, we're not. I'm not a soccer player. So I just want to preface this by saying we're going to kind of blow through a list of things, of ways that we feel that we've changed and how we've gotten better. And if you can take one, just one little nugget and apply it to your life, I'd say it's a win.

Dave:

I would say take more than one, because I hear what you're saying. But let's, hey, we're not trying to be average here. We've uh, we, I have rifled through so many different ways to react to situations or parent um, and we've fumbled our way into some really useful things and upgrades, and a lot it's through help right From us, listening to people like Lisa and other parenting kind of experts to learn, and so some of these things are awesome. So try to take more than one. If you don't have, take two. How?

Lauren:

about that, you know. Just like it's on Halloween, take two. Um, no, seriously, you take more. I'm just saying it could be overwhelming sometimes when you try and change that For sure.

Dave:

So reach, reach for the stars. Take one.

Lauren:

So I love you.

Dave:

Okay, let's make this little bit of time together more valuable.

Lauren:

What, what, what is a way that we have changed or that, you see, I?

Dave:

don't even know if it's changed. I think I'm just going to go through the lesson. Lesson number one and it comes from us is fail forward and so embracing failure in this. A lot of these, again, a lot of these apply to us as adults. It's not just the kids, right, and as we've grown, like failing forward, like kids, always get disappointed or I don't know what it is about society, but it makes them feel like they've lost Right, whether it's losing as easy as sports analogy, right, losing a game, they feel their heads down, they're mopey, they feel sad. If we can start to instill in them that you don't fail, you either win or you learn Right. So there's learning and moving forward onto the next one, to be better.

Lauren:

Yeah. So let me ask you a question. That's why I love doing this. This is fun for me. So when you say fail forward, do you mean Instill that? Are you thinking we're instilling that in the kids, or or are you saying you're failing forward and modeling that, or both?

Dave:

I think it's a family. I think it's a family value. I think a lot of these things the parents have to model them right. It says this morning I. So I always think about this, but I worked out this morning. We have a gym in our house and I went for a workout and I came out and the kids were doing what they do. They're trying to grab iPads and doing whatever. Lauren was out with Grace at volleyball and all I could think about was um, I need them. I don't need them, but I would love it if they would work out. I up until this point. One of them is 13, the other are other sons, 11. And I've never pushed them to work out or go to the gym. But as soon as I walked out of the gym, I said guys, why don't you grab a workout? And they? I came back 10 minutes later and they were both in there doing their little thing and I joined them for a little bit, but they learned it from watching me.

Lauren:

Yeah.

Dave:

Yeah, right, and this is I all like a thing, but honestly was if, if I wasn't in there doing it, there's no chance they would do it. And then I think about we were just at a volleyball tournament with I looked around the that room there were 65 courts, right, 20 kids per court. They're almost 1500 kids, which means there were probably 2000 parents. I'm just wondering everyone's yelling at their kids and you see it so often. You know the kids not doing the right thing they're. They're up their kids ass on the court and looking around. I'm like how many people, how many of you guys train yourself and work out and pay attention to detail and do these things Like and I'm guilty in the past, for sure I do it, you know yell at your kid to get off the phone, but you're sitting on your phone. But think about, are we doing the things we're trying to get our kids to do? I don't know that that's always the case.

Lauren:

Yeah, so so you're talking fail forward, we fail forward and show our kids that that's what you do.

Dave:

Yes, and then we encourage it.

Lauren:

Yes, so I do want to share something that we have gotten away from and I want to bring it back Now that we're talking about this. We spent a good portion of I don't even know how long it was, but it was very long time sitting at dinner asking our kids how you failed today and I think again, you know we prepare to do these podcasts, but I don't over prepare because when I do, I get stuck on my words and I think I'm supposed to say something. So, um, I actually forgot about this till right now. We haven't done this for a little bit. Asked our kids what did you fail at today? And, um, I know a famous person, sarah Blakely, has talked about her. Her father did this as well. But it's instilling the ability to fail and not have any negative emotions Like we get excited what did you fail, what did you fail at today? And then there's no negativity around that Fail forward. I love that.

Lauren:

Stop and think about feelings. This is something I could, dead honest, say I never did in the past until I really started to understand feelings and dig into why they were there and what purpose they serve, and started to separate myself from my feelings. That's actually an exercise we do in the program where we work with moms one-on-one is. It's called a separation exercise. I'm not angry, I'm feeling angry. That's completely different, but it allows us to take that little bit of a space.

Lauren:

I never, I never, did that until I don't know this journey that we've been on Understanding our kids don't see things the exact same way we do. I used to flip my lid very quickly. I actually remember numerous occasions you would tell me, lauren, you can't do that. I would just start yelling and I would have no perspective of what their thoughts or their feelings were in that particular moment. So, stopping and understanding they don't have the same perspective that we do and expecting them to is ridiculous, even though that's all I know, that's all I saw, and knowing that they're gonna have their own feelings, and kind of providing a buffer, like a space, to kind of allow a situation to unfold.

Dave:

I think there's two other bonuses here with that and when I wrote this one. So I think and this is something I did with Grace I don't know if it's because I didn't have any familiarity with like she our first born is a girl, obviously, and I grew up with in all males, all boy cousins, two brothers, no sisters, and so for every reason I always tried to communicate with her. I think when you can get them to identify their own feelings, it calms them down a little bit and gives them awareness. Just like Lauren, you were freaking out, whatever those moments were, or I'm like you can't do that. That's almost like a child moment where, like you can't be in touch with your feelings and you just turn into the Hulk and freak out, right.

Dave:

But Grace was able to identify her feelings. She's a girl, right, and everybody that has girls and boys knows there's a difference. But getting she became aware, right, and now she's gotten older it's easier to talk about. Like, after her volleyball tournament I told you like she had a moment on the court, an emotional moment. She'd never been in a really intense situation at kind of the level she's playing, and we talked about it over our favorite Shake Shack. We have our little thing after the tournament and she like teared up but she was able to just talk about it. It wasn't, she wasn't embarrassed, she didn't think it was like the worst thing ever, and she's able to talk through it. The second part, rolling right off of that, is that you can connect with your kids better. Yes, right, like if they're able to talk about how they feel, that's a sharing and being vulnerable and open with you and that's something that creates more of a bond, I think.

Lauren:

Yeah, and again, from an action item in our pantry right now is a list of feelings. And here's one thing that we I don't know many people who do this stop and actually discern between the difference, the different feelings, because everyone defaults to the major five right, You're mad, you're sad. There are so many subdivisions of what mad and sad could be Happy, and we did a whole month on this. Actually. We worked with moms for an entire month on just understanding and being able to articulate I'm not mad, I feel lonely, Like that's a different conversation.

Lauren:

So in our pantry right now, every time you open it it's actually in my bathroom too has a list of feelings and sub-feelings and the definitions, Because if we can have the correct conversation and we know what those feelings are, it's easier to talk about and it's easier to connect to. With. That being said, do I think the kids know all of them? No, but I will tell you, the list of feelings and sub-feelings has been in our pantry every single time they open it and, trust me, our kids open our pantry more times than I probably wish they did in the course of a day. They've opened that pantry. It's probably been up there for two years now. So I think also understanding feelings is important too. Anyways, okay, moving on.

Dave:

Do hard things.

Lauren:

Yeah, I love this.

Dave:

And this is meaning get your kids to do hard things Again. The backdrop to all this is we need to model these things for the kids right. It's not telling the kid, it's showing them how.

Lauren:

Doing hard things and putting yourself out of your comfort zone and having our kids try out for a team that maybe they're uncomfortable to try out for, or sign up for something a baking class or go to the harder class, right? We had a situation this particular year where one of our sons wasn't necessarily recommended for honors and he wanted to be in it but he was nervous. But we talked to the school and we put him in it and he's had A's for the last two quarters in that class and it was a good confidence booster for him and it showed that, oh, you can do something. It seemed like it was gonna be hard. He has to work at it, but he's able to do it.

Lauren:

I think it feeds into that first thing we talked about, which is, you know, fail forward, fail fast too right, we wanna learn the lessons earlier. We want our kids to learn the lessons earlier, but I think the more evidence that they compile where they do something hard, a challenge, right. Our daughter trying out for this volleyball team is a good example, our son trying out for volleyball for the very first time, things like that they can look back at and say, oh okay, you know, that was hard. I was scared, I didn't know what to expect. I did it anyway and look, it worked out well. And if it didn't work out the way they wanted to, we talked about what we learned and we move on to the next thing. But we need to get our. I think it's important to get our kids conditioned to be excited about challenges as opposed to afraid of challenges.

Dave:

Yeah, and the next time something hard comes around you can always recall that thing right? I think that's one of the huge benefits is when they get nervous or they get scared or they're going into a big situation, you can say, hey, remember that time you did this. I think doing things together too right, it doesn't have to be. One of the things I love that we've done is the rafting trip. When we've gone, we've gone twice.

Lauren:

Yeah, we take the kids twice.

Dave:

So we did three times, if you count Idaho, when I pushed Will out of the boat. I've forced the hard things, sometimes more than I should. I think Will was, will was maybe five, it was like four or five it was. The water was not crazy, but the water was freezing. I probably did not want to get in. I kept egging them on to get in and then finally I pushed them. He was so pissed. Fair enough, not see, not a parenting win. I over, over overstepped a little there. Serial line stepper Okay.

Lauren:

Wait, can I just share about doing hard things. So confidence comes from the way we speak to ourselves. But when else it also comes from the things that directly comes from everything that is in our control, only in our control, like 100% in our capacity to control. And I think when you say yes to do something hard, you're controlling your attitude, you're controlling your effort. Right, those are the things you can control. I just think that's gonna build confidence. I know it is okay. Moving on, moving on.

Dave:

Let's, let's pick up the pace here.

Lauren:

I like this, I like podcasting with you.

Dave:

Um, oh my gosh, use your, use your words. What emotion are you feeling right now? Yeah, go into the pantry and find you loud right now.

Lauren:

Use your words. Use your words. Communicate essentially teaching our kids to communicate. I Know me personally I've gotten very good at saying things. Like you know, I'm really sorry for the way I acted.

Dave:

I think this is all goes back to emotional intelligence, like I think, for me, one of my goals as a parent. I've put so much value in emotional intelligence and being able to communicate and navigate the world in a functional way, without bottling up your feelings, without burying things, because I think that's where, like long-lasting things, like you talk about trauma which gets probably it's thrown around too much generational trauma, it happens because we don't talk about things and we're not able to express our feelings. So, like, the backdrop to a lot of these is just developing the capacity to be aware of how you're feeling and communicate it in a way that's not overly emotional and kind of spastic, right like when you bring I don't know how else to put it when you, when you bring like the anger and Intensity to a conversation, it's hard to, it's hard to communicate properly.

Lauren:

Yeah, and I still struggle with that. I'm super, you know this. I'm super open and honest with I've been much better.

Dave:

You have helped me become a better parent, not from anything other than having a fourth child sometimes.

Lauren:

But that's the beauty in working on ourselves. I tell moms that we work with all the time. It doesn't mean you, we snap our fingers when we go through this journey of, hey, I'm gonna figure out how to get my shit together and I'm gonna work on my emotional intelligence. Whatever that is Doesn't mean everything's perfect. I've apologized to our kids many a times by saying, hey, I'm really sorry, there was no reason for me to get that that's actually a great parenting lesson that we've learned.

Dave:

That we didn't put. I didn't grow up like this like I don't remember. I'm sure my parents probably are gonna quit listening in episode two, so they're probably not gonna hear this, but I don't remember them Apologizing to me or thinking like that they didn't do a great job and letting me know, and I think that's something that I'm sure people are gonna think this is wild, but Like the times when I've lost my shit with the kids and I shouldn't have like, I look back, I'm like man. There are moments where I was not a good parent and there have been a few recently in that moment that I've been able to say like I didn't do very well there, I'm sorry right.

Dave:

I didn't mean for it to come out like that. I didn't mean for you to feel kind of the way that you do that I push you into, and I think For them to hear that that again creates a little bit more trust. Yep, because we're not. We're not perfect. Yep, right, I think that's a huge one.

Lauren:

Yeah, I've also added in because this is true, this is a hundred percent true. When I'm extra tired and I don't get a lot of sleep and I have not moved my body and taking care of myself, I will, I will just own it and Good, bad, right, wrong, I don't know. But my, my thought process, and doing that is I'm trying to at least Shed some light into why. So the kids maybe can understand a little bit like, oh, mom's pretty tired, yeah, or so I just it's all about communication. Right, use your words, all right.

Dave:

Yeah, I want to jump into a big one. I've been thinking a lot about lately and you're probably wondering which yeah, I'm gonna pull the things they notice.

Dave:

One of the biggest is how you make them feel yeah. And so I had a moment like we've gone through. This is kind of our, our third business in a way, if you count my first career in trading, and we open a gym and now we have this incredible online coaching program for mom's shout-out strong mom. But Like I spend all the time I know dads can probably relate to this, and any of the moms that are in the program for sure, because they're all career driven.

Dave:

It's not like our kids don't give a shit about our career and we we think that us putting in this time and we're showing, and we're showing them how to work hard and, yes, all these things. They don't care about that. They don't care about how much money you're making. They don't care about you know, your accolades at work. They hear about how you make them feel yeah at the end of the day. Like I just had a vision of I'm putting in all this work and stressing and trying to take care of the family and all these things, and then, like Jack is looking at me like dude, you're just my dad, I love you, that's it. Yep, it has nothing to do with that, and so I think Detaching and in understanding that can go a long way and how you kind of react to the kids or the way you look at the kids.

Lauren:

Yeah, I mean, I'll just you've heard me talk about this plenty of times, but I'll speak of just my growing up. Right, we didn't have a lot of things. We have a lot of stuff, we have a lot of money. I had the world's best Childhood like. I had my parents attention, I had my parents time, I had my parents support, I had my parents love. There was never a question.

Lauren:

So, when you, when I think of that, I definitely yeah, that hits me in all the fields and it's a good reminder, though it's a. It is a different time and there are a lot of different things pulling at our attention. And I'll be the first to say I Understand that the phone's always there and we do have to struggle. We struggle with technology, we struggle in technology in our house we do, and and we have stopped putting our phone in our bedroom because that was a struggle. But you're right, like when we're staring at our phone and telling the kids you know, get off of your device, it doesn't, doesn't really add up. But I have to check myself for sure and say, hey, you know, am I acting like my kids are here or am I just in my own little world?

Dave:

Yeah, I think that probably will. Will help people, helps me Understanding that, like you're kind of you, you're your kid's hero.

Lauren:

Yeah right.

Dave:

Like it's. It's the reality of it. That's how they look at us a lot and that sounds like you know rainbows and ice cream and unicorns and stuff, but I think that's the reality, right?

Dave:

Yeah, kids idolize their parents if they're treated correctly, like they want to idolize us, right I think? Unfortunately, sometimes parents do things to ruin that, and so just remember that kind of and that's one thing that I try and take with me again I'm not telling anybody what will work for you, but that works for me, right? You kind of rise to the occasion, yeah, when you picture yourself as that person.

Lauren:

I do want to share a question that we have asked. It's a very uncomfortable question. I haven't asked it for a little bit but I need to now that we're doing this episode. We have asked our kids, you know, how can I be better for you? And it's very uncomfortable because it's almost like you don't want to hear the things as a mom that you're screwing up at, because we want to do everything we can for our kids.

Lauren:

But I actually went for the last time. I asked our daughter Grace. We went for a walk. Our kids nine times out of ten saying no, they don't want to go for walks with us, but we still ask.

Lauren:

And one day she's like sure, and I couldn't believe it. And she came for a walk with me and I just said you know, hey, like what can I do to be a better mom, like for you? And she just looked at me and she was like thanks for asking, mom. I don't know, I'll get back to you and she never did. But I'm glad that line of communication is open. So if she feels like she needs to tell me something or she knows, I want to hear it and I will tell you. My son, our youngest, told me we need to go on our one-on-one, that's what you need to do, like we usually do a one-on-one trip once every year with our kids individually. So I'll take one, you know Dave will take one, and it's just that one-on-one time. So I'm like what can I do for you? How can I be better?

Dave:

I think it's also gonna be a quick window into exactly what's important to them, Because literally, it'll be hanging out more. It's most likely gonna be the thing which, again, is a great reminder as a parent, like what's important? There's so many things that we think is important, but that's coming from our adult brain, right, we don't remember what it's like to be a kid. We don't remember that we're our kid's idol, Right, and so just asking it's really it's interesting too. Yes, it's uncomfortable, but it's a fun exercise. People and experiences over possessions.

Dave:

If we can teach our kids this lesson, I think we've done an okay job. Right, and like this a little bit of it is important for us to remember, but also the kids and you model this one. But they're like the rafting trip and getting outside and doing things versus accumulating stuff. Right, Because it's very easy, especially in the world of keeping up with your neighbors, to put focus on what you can get rather than what you can do. Right, and that's like we have invested, like when we do things. We put money into our gym so we can work out right, or health related things, which I think is another great focus for them.

Lauren:

Yeah, I, you know, as we're talking this out, it was a lot easier for us to do that too when the kids were a little bit younger. Not that we still. We still prioritize experiences, without a doubt. I'm just thinking, as you're talking about that we used to be. We used to go out all the time it would be into the woods. How many hikes did we do? Right? We used to have a saying that we would say in our house, which was kids don't remember their best day of TV. That's just not something that they remember, but they do remember going on the hike. We always try and make a trip every year. As the kids have gotten older, it's definitely gotten a little bit more challenging. So I think it's just an area of focus that we need, at this particular point in time, need to map out.

Dave:

Yeah, well, I think it's. You can do little things right, Like I think of the having Shake Shack with Grace, like the moments might be smaller, right, but that's still an experience in a moment, versus a thing like really trying to navigate. And I guess design, because it happens by design, like you have to be intentional. Like skiing trip, right, not everybody skis, it's really, it's cheap and easy to walk out into the woods. We do it. One of the best experiences we had over the summer, best for us, worst for mom we went just as people get to know Lauren and I, I'm a bit more adventurous.

Dave:

Yes, I did a hike when Lauren was gone. I took the kids, which I no offense, I love when I have three of them by myself. But I took the kids on a hike and I don't stay on the trail very often. I have one rule follower who I need to drag. He gets really nervous going off the trail and so I do it a little bit for him. But we went into kind of this gigantic kind of stream and hiked upstream to probably a 75 to 100 foot waterfall. You kind of can't get out of this ravine and then we trek out kind of straight up. So we took Lauren, aka mom right the big Olympian athlete. She's from Canada, she's been outside before on our hike and she had a meltdown. The boys like this is a hike where you're going upstream through waist deep water, you're in little shoots and waterfalls. We had so much fun and we had the pictures and then Lauren's just pissed.

Lauren:

Like hyper. I was like hyperventilating.

Dave:

The kids are loving it. We're like super dirty clawing to get out of this, straight out of this deep ravine. And then we get home and Grace and I doctored. We had a picture of mom and we made her look like Lara Croft from Tomb Raider to make fun of her. She was just so grumpy.

Lauren:

That was so grumpy. Yeah, yeah, I'm not as adventurous. I'm more of like, hey, there's a path, it's right here, let's do the thing.

Dave:

I'll give you credit. You did that. You came right. I think part of it is your spouse or your partner might not be that into the thing. Either. Don't not do the thing Because of it. Right Like I was gonna take them no matter what, because it was really kind of lighting me up. It's so great.

Lauren:

Yeah, I did, you're right, I did go. But yeah, I was like every time they took a step that the water was moving, you couldn't see where they were stepping. I'm just like ankles and feet and you know I was totally mommying it up hundred percent. And then we get to this waterfall and you guys are all like, oh, no big deal, we'll just jump from rock to rock, which were like eight, ten feet tall, and I couldn't watch Because I just kept thinking that's part of the problem, though, is we get older like, yeah, we see all these things, we see and we see, we think we can see the future of what's coming right, and sometimes we can.

Dave:

we know his parents, like protect the kids and you see, the risks.

Dave:

But, like, at some point we lose our Adventurousness right. And if you don't have it I've read it's interesting to think about when young, like if you're a young parent sometimes your kids can be more adventurous because you're more willing for them to take risks as you get older. Older parents are kid gloves and the kids can turn out differently because you're so worried about what could happen, and so I think it's a good reminder for us old parents to like take risks. It's OK, Relatively safe.

Lauren:

We all made it. I actually got a really bad eye injury that day too. What was the eye injury?

Dave:

My necklace came up. Well, when I say bad eye injury it really just looked bad.

Lauren:

But I was going from rock to rock and I had to lean forward in order to catch myself because the boulders were so big. I was like trying to put my foot up and I leaned forward. My necklace had like a point on it and it came straight up and whipped and smoked me in my eye. And the kids are like, mom, what happened to your eye? And then for the next I'd say month, it was just the whole half of my eye was blood red. It did not look good in pictures.

Dave:

Don't bring your princess and her jewelry on your deep woods hike, all right.

Lauren:

Well, at least I laughed at myself. There was a time where I wouldn't have been able to laugh at myself when you guys sent me my Lara Croft picture with the kids my one eye patch.

Dave:

Yeah, we put an eye patch on her because her eye was all beat up.

Lauren:

All right. So people and experiences over possessions. I think for us it's been ebbs and flows and how we're able to do that and show up for it, but the goal for us is to have our kids understand like things. Are things detached from thing? It doesn't. Those don't really matter. The things that matter are the memories. We talk about this a lot. There's a return on investment. You make a vacancy, you have a vacation and you go somewhere cool. We went out West and we did kayaking with the sea lions and all that in Monterey. That, yeah, that's going to cost. You know what a vacation costs, right, it's a return on investment. We still talk about it still today. We still go through pictures. We still talk about how fun it was. There's a return on investment when it comes to experiences, and I want our kids to go do things. I might be nervous, but I still want our kids to go live right. All right, let's do this.

Dave:

Take risks, encourage the risks, but think of it as your kid jumps into the pool without necessarily knowing how to swim. You're the edge of the pool. They need to know that you are there if things don't go right.

Lauren:

Yeah, If anyone has kids, if and you haven't found Dr Lisa DeMore, please do. She's fantastic. She has a bunch of books under pressure, untangled, emotional lives of teenagers, just pretty much pretty much a workbook and encyclopedia on how to manage parenting, especially in those ages. Right, A lot of, a lot of her work has to do with girls going into teenage hood and she talks about that exact analogy, Like we need to be the side of the pool. They need to get out there and take the risks, but know that we are the safe space, Know that they can always come back.

Lauren:

Their job is to is to do that and I know as a parent right, I'd be the mom a long time ago that would say, like, why are you putting that in your mouth? What are you? What are you doing? What are you like? Their job as kids is to explore. Their job is to see how far they can go. And once I understood that through a lot of her Dr DeMore's books, to be honest once I understood what was happening, I was able to let it happen more naturally and be that side of the pool. So I mean, I'm not the, I'm not the best, because I think I can always get better and I'm always working and I make plenty of mistakes, but I at least have an understanding of what's going on now. Are you laughing at me?

Dave:

I'm just thinking, the one I love. I love it. It's hard to think like that when your kids do something and to remember that they are exploring the world, even even as teenagers. Right, they're, they're saying things. It changes from. I remember when Jack was little I don't know if you remember this story, but this is where it was a huge moment. I just kind of learned the concept of like the kids are supposed to do these things. Yes, and we were walking through the outlet mall in Florida and I don't know if you guys remember, but they used to have I think they still have these because apparently people still smoke that's the rumor. They have those stand up ashtrays, which is weird to even talk about ashtrays with the sand in them. Remember, and we're just walking by and Jack was probably like three or four, you know, actually probably older.

Lauren:

He think he was older.

Dave:

He literally I could watch him walk. There were like three cigarette butts sticking out and I'm watching him. He's walking by, he turns and looks at it, he pauses for a split second and then just goes full palm into the ashtray. And I remember I went to, just I wanted to lose my mind. I'm like dude, like what are you do? Why would you ever do that? And then I remember immediately you're doing it because you're five.

Dave:

You have no idea what that is, and it looks like the beach to you, Right? And so it became more of a okay, call myself, become aware and then ask the question why is he doing that? Oh, that actually makes sense.

Lauren:

Yep, it absolutely does. And again, not that I make, not that every single one of either of our reactions are always the perfect one that we'd be looking for, but I do think we catch ourselves enough, because that's that's. What stops our kids from taking risks is when they know they're going to get in trouble for every little thing that they try, they're way more hesitant. They look like, well, are they going to get mad at me now? So that understanding is huge.

Dave:

The other thing Can I jump in real quick? Sure, I think it's the one thing I was going to say. So that's an easy example. It's you recognize them when the kids are young, yes, they put things in their mouth and they do dumbass things, right. But as they get older, the risks in the feeling the world out change and it could be disobeying. It could be saying something, it could be, you know, something like not turning in their homework, right, they're just ways to see what are the repercussions if I take this risk or take this action.

Dave:

And I think a really interesting clear cut way to watch them. If you think about sports, right, if you think about and there are probably people listening that coached, right, we both coached. But when your kid or a kid on the field takes a chance, takes a shot, maybe they shouldn't in quotes, shouldn't take, or they make a move they shouldn't, shouldn't take or were uncoached to do. Just remember they're trying something new, right, and so sometimes encouraging that creativity is smart and it's good for the kid. In the long run it might not have worked out, but now they know right, you have to learn the lesson to prevent it in the future.

Lauren:

Yeah, speaking of older kids, one of the things I got from the emotional lives of teenagers book was there comes a point where kids see themselves separate than you and this is so fascinating to me. It's almost like they want to make their own brand and that brand is like if you say white, they're going to say black, because they're trying to distinguish their brand from you. They don't want it to be yours, no matter how amazing you know and put together your brand is. And I will never forget we have some really good friends from Chicago. Whitey, he's like the coolest guy ever and I remember one time he said his you know kids, he embarrassed his kids and I remember looking at you going.

Lauren:

If Whitey embarrasses his kids, no parent on earth has a chance, you know, because he's literally the coolest guy ever. He goes to pick them up on his skateboard. He's like the coolest guy. But then it doesn't matter, right? Because, like we talked about before, they only see you as mom, they only see you as dad and they're trying to separate themselves for you. So instead of and you know again, as I'm reading, I'm like taking notes I've highlighted so much out of this book that you can't even read the words anymore. But it's just. It's a good reminder that they are going to separate. They're supposed to.

Dave:

It's the reason that our boys have these awful llama haircuts. It's the reason TikTok is a thing. It's the reason, whatever they're, they dab and they do these dances like they just want to be different than their parents. Every generation, forever has done it. I find myself it's so funny. I go watch the kids play basketball. Now, look at, these haircuts are terrible. And it's the same thing that our parents were saying to me when I was a kid and so like it doesn't matter, just pay attention, right? They just want to be different, they want their own thing and it's a separation exactly like you said.

Lauren:

Yes, all right.

Dave:

We should all listen to Lisa Moore 100%.

Lauren:

Her podcast is incredible. Her books are incredible. I've sent them to a lot of people. All right, let's get into one of my favorites.

Lauren:

Someone said this to us when it's about sports, it's about parenting and in sports, and I could do 50 million episodes on this. But it's their time in the sun and remembering that they're the ones on the court. They're the ones on the field. It is their time in the sun. Let them choose what they want to do. It is their life.

Lauren:

In order to be successful in anything, it has to be their passion fueling it. So just stay out of the way. I think that's something that we've always been pretty passionate about, but so I won't say we. I wouldn't say we've necessarily really changed on this, but it is something that I just think is so important. They need to be the ones with the in the fire inside. They need to be the show Right. We just got done. This is a true story. We just got back from a volleyball tournament not long ago and there was a parent barking like a dog I'm not, but I'm not kidding Like to the point where my mom called me and said did they let dogs in the arena? And she was dead serious because she was thought well, there's no way a human would be making that barking.

Dave:

She was watching on the Internet.

Lauren:

And, yeah, she was watching on the Internet, but it just takes the attention away from the real show, and the real it's the kids time, so stay out of the way. That's so important.

Dave:

The other thing you do when you get in the way, you become the show. You take the attention off of them, but you also confuse them Like so, we see so and this is like sports, it is it just the reality is it's a big part of everyone's families lives and it doesn't for the ones that aren't into sports. There is something we were at the convention center. There was a dance. There's a million things that kids do piano speech and debate.

Dave:

Whatever the thing is when parents get involved, and especially in sports. You see so many parents talk to their kids on the court and it just confused them. They can barely pay attention and manage emotions without yelling in the whistles, without without you, right, they can barely pay attention to the coach. And one of the things I love about our coach in volleyball right now he says when something happens on the court or something goes wrong, don't look at me, look at each other. You need to pick each other up. The team needs to look at itself. They don't need to look at the coach. And I'll tell you, if they don't need to look at the coach, they sure shit don't need to look at their parents.

Dave:

Yeah, right, and that's one of the things that I've been on both sides. I coached Jack and in basketball, so he we had like he would look at me because he's used to me being his coach, right, I hate it, it's dry, it's like it's one of the things I wish I could undo. Yeah, so, again, like I'm still a work, but at this point I'm so much better, like there's no emotion for me. I'm not gyrating and throwing my hands up. You see parents all the time. It's so hard.

Lauren:

Your kid picks up on your body language and energy, the energy that's being put out, and they're already. They're already hard enough on themselves. If they make a mistake, they're already down. There's no reason to kick them when they're down because they're already there. Our job is to say hey, yeah, it wasn't your best, no big deal.

Dave:

Next, they see they see the look on your face, right, it has to hit them. It's interesting and this is something and I've again, I've not been great with this my whole my whole career as a parent. Much better recently when I heard someone talk about it like and it was, I think it was a basketball coach, it might have been Gino Oriama, but he's talking about Body language in general and how it affects. We are affected by each other's body language, but a parent's body language. If a kid happens to glance into the stands and sees the facial expression of a disappointed parent, like, think about that. Your kid is Feeling like they're disappointing their parent. Do you think they need that? Like? I know we don't intend to put that on them because we're just kind of being fans sometimes, but it hits them and it's. It makes me sad to think about that. I in the past have probably Made my kids sad right.

Lauren:

Yeah, I mean I. I don't remember that because I probably would have Elbowed you, but no hundred percent. Again, the reason why we're sharing these, these are just tips Because, like you said, most times people we don't stop and ask ourselves hey, where can I be better here? We just go through and it's like, hey, how many practices or games have we all been through? Have you ever stopped and asked yourself you know what am I contributing here and am I contributing to my kid enjoying the sport? Or is my day ruined, and then ruined our kids day, because they had a bad game?

Lauren:

It's gonna happen. I think that's the beauty of Of both of us playing sports for a long time is I've been through a billion bad games. Bad games are gonna happen, it's nothing to write home about, it's no big deal. And Also, the world's best games those are also gonna happen, here and there they're not. It's not your norm if it's your best game. So just relax, but taking stock and asking yourself like, what role am I playing in my kids enjoyment of the sport? Because, to be Dead honest, the only way a kid's gonna get better at their sport is if they stay on the field. They stay on the court. They're unhappy, they're not gonna stay on period.

Dave:

Yeah, a lot of times. I think the most beneficial thing after a game is A smoothie that.

Dave:

Well, that's our go-to we do whatever you do shake shack whatever, that's an end tournament thing. Right, because now we've all these Moms listening who are like I want to lose weight, I want to feel better, and I'm in here talking about shake shack. Well, that's the other thing about the program. You can learn how to manage shake shack into your diet easily. But that's grace and I that's a tournament ending we search shake shack out. We've probably been in three or four different cities now, but that's just our thing and that, like someone else said this oh Was the goal. It was. I think it was Ian Poulter's.

Dave:

Yeah golfer, european golfer, and was just saying if you want your kid to enjoy golf, take him golfing, cut it off early and then go get ice cream after, because you want them to enjoy the experience of Going practicing. And if they have a little kind of micro reward in moment at the end they're gonna fall in love with the sport. Because the goal of all these things, remember, it's not to be the best at the sport. I that may come as a shock to everybody. The goal is to enjoy it, so it becomes a lifelong thing, right, and so you're continuously learning from it.

Lauren:

It's not to be the to be the best at some point, sure at some point you have an outlier child right but but I think that's the point is, if you are enjoying it, the more you enjoy it, the better chance you have at succeeding at it. It's just a fact. My coach in the 2020 Olympic Games right before I was about to run off, run out there and pitch in my third Olympics Our mental performance coach said to me Lauren, you don't work softball, you play it. Go have some fun. It's true, you're going to perform better if you're. You're having that enjoyment part. This isn't a conversation saying that there's never gonna be grit, hard work, freakin, just pissed off moments. That's not it at all. It's the overarching feel of it. So you talked about golf and then going to have ice cream. So now, every time the kid hears golf, they're like yeah, I go, I have fun. It doesn't take forever, because kids don't like to be out there forever and I get to go have ice cream.

Dave:

Like it's win, win, win, win, win think about the change from Asking the kid why they didn't box out to Getting pulp or getting a smoothie, like that's that shift from never talk to the kid about the game in the car Right to taking away a terribly negative thing that just adds more stress to the kid and flipping it into a terribly positive thing, which is it's amazing like you watch the shift in your child's kind of outlook on sports in general. It's it's wild.

Lauren:

Yeah, I do want to share one thing. I saw it on Instagram and I can't remember who it was or I would give credit. I thought it was absolutely genius. Speaking of the after game talk, it was a baseball player and he was saying that he has a code with his son and After the game or before the game, at any time in the car, if his son has his hat on, that's his, his son's code for saying Anything baseball, let's go soon as his hats off.

Lauren:

That means I don't want a coach anymore, I want a dad, and I thought that was so genius because it just gives an indication as a as a dad or as a mom. If I'm like, hey, how did this go, and what are you feeling like if the hats off, it's off limits and the kid has the power, pretty much, to say, hey, I'm not in the mood to talk about this, as opposed to just getting peppered question after question after question after question, and I saw it, I would have shared it. I wish I could have liked it 50 million times, but we could go on forever about our philosophy with kids and sports, but it really boils down to they're driving the bus. It's got to be their fire. You know that's going to be fueling the engine to keep going.

Dave:

All right, we have one final one before we get out of here. Yes, talk to me.

Lauren:

So Well, you can share it.

Dave:

I think you have to be the example. I think you can articulate it better than anybody because you've Done it and lived it and kind of gone on this journey of maybe being the person you want and then are not being the person you want and then being the person that is the example. So you, you say all the time in the program you can't give your kids Confidence if you don't have it. You can't have your kids. Or ask your kids to be fit and healthy if you're not fit and healthy.

Lauren:

Yeah, there's just a and it goes back to what we talked about at the beginning. There's just an impact on our kids of what we do versus what we say is just I Mean, I don't think I there are words to describe how important it is, and I think if we can work on ourselves to give ourselves the things that we want, which is confidence to show up in life, energy and you're right you you can't give your kids energy if you don't have it. You can't give them attention if you're scattered and you don't have it. I actually just had someone say to me which I think was with. I was very interesting. She said well, I think there's nothing wrong with being in a season of life where your kids are the priority, and I Said I understand what you're saying.

Lauren:

However, I have been the mom who has not been able to get out of bed. I've been the mom who has had had to say no to family outings. Literally, you've left me at home or I went on family outings, like the example of when we were at the zoo and I was walking 20 feet behind everybody and maybe it was 10, but there was a separation between the family and me. I didn't speak a word.

Lauren:

I think it's really important to Do the things ourselves that we need to do. To, number one, take care of ourselves. Number two, to gain the tools that we have so we can give it to our kids. And three, if you think about how many parenting books there are now versus when there were a long time ago, like a long time ago, parents didn't tell kids exactly what to do and how you know everything was gonna work out, like they just lived and they modeled and then that's what we learned is what they did. It just it's really important. We you say this all the time. Parenting is like taking the world's hardest test and you don't know how you do For like 20 years, maybe 30 years. Right, give yourself the best shot to do as well as possible on the test by just Doing the things that you know are Important and impactful. How about this?

Dave:

one. Stop asking your kids to reach for the stars or saying, hey, you can be whatever you want, when you grow up you can be president, and then you hate your job and you're unhappy in your life and you're not living the way you want to live. That doesn't work. Yeah, your kids not. They need to see you doing the things. Don't tell your kid to get off their phone if you're not willing to do it yourself. Yeah, don't tell your kid to be in shape and and be active and try to take chances and play sports and have experiences if you're unwilling to do it.

Lauren:

Yeah, I heard that and again. So when I decided to Go and try out for my third Olympic team, I had a lot of people were very Positive about it and I had a lot of people that were in my corner. There was definitely a subset of people who had backhanded comments and Let me know that it you know, it'd be very hard for me to leave my family. You know, I got kind of those comments about how could I leave and do something for me when it did take so much time away from the family, and the one thing that constantly came up was that exact thing. How could I look at my kids in the eyes and tell them you can do anything, you know, go for your dreams, and then Me have this opportunity and say no, no, that's okay. Like I'm hopeful that them seeing me, at least put myself out there and try and them being along for the journey. That just Kind of ingrains oh, this is just what we do a hundred percent they notice.

Dave:

I think we're all lying to ourselves. The hard truth is we're lying to ourselves if we don't think that they're paying attention Right, they. We are so caught up in our own lives that all the time, 24-7, there's a set or two or three sets of eyeballs on us and we can ignore that responsibility or we can accept it. I think it's exciting if you accept it, because it shows you there's opportunity there. It's opportunity to show them an incredible life. And, yes, there's ups and downs and we're gonna be Go through quote seasons, which I I agree with, but I I do think it's bullshit that your kids, they should just plain not be first.

Dave:

Well, it's like they can't truly be first if you aren't operating at a really high level. And when I say seasons, I mean stretches of weeks and months, or a year. I don't mean a day when your kid has an emergency right, yeah it's different.

Dave:

Yeah, we are reasonable. What we, what we are saying, is you have to put the time and make yourself the best person. Yeah, to be the best for them. Right, because they see it and it trickles all the way down from how you treat yourself, how you treat other people. Your kids notice how you treat the waiter. Yes, absolutely.

Dave:

It's. It's the little thing, so I think that's the biggest one. And Finding someone to hold you accountable to that right yeah. Yeah, it's not always gonna be your spouse. You might have to go find a community, like strong mom, of people who are willing to do the work and hold you accountable, because that's what makes us better.

Lauren:

Yeah, when you're around people who are Leading by example and that's what we want, right? We want our moms to lead their families and not just be. We want them to be active participants and in the front versus you know the leftovers, essentially. So I think it's it's really important. When you're around people that are doing that, you're like, oh, I can do that as well. I actually just saw a post in our, our community that was like I knew I needed to take care of myself. I wasn't feeling great. I finally got my workout in and now I'm a lot nicer to my family. So now I'm. I looked at that and I was like I need to go get my workout into. I looked at that and said you needed to go get your workout into.

Lauren:

Yes, okay, so those are just some lessons that we've learned. Hopefully you can apply one or shoot for the stars to three, four, however many. We're gonna continue to Evolve what we've learned and come back and I'm sure we're gonna look at episodes way down the line and say, hey, we've even moved on from that. But hopefully you can take something or an apply it, you know, to help you a little bit. Application is everything I do appreciate.

Dave:

Having a conversation about it, because just talking about it now Puts us in a place to be more aware, right? Like we said at the beginning, awareness of these things is everything. Yeah, all right, all right, officially talk too much. Yes, thanks for hanging with us. If you like this, please like subscribe.

Lauren:

Send to a mom that you know could gather together A little tidbit out of here to make her life better as well. What am I missing? If you would like to join our online community, we have a free Facebook group which just shares some of the things that we do inside our coaching program. You can find us on Facebook at strong Movement right mental, emotional and physical. Mental and emotional mastery.

Dave:

Yes, and if you're interested, in you really like what you hear, we can hop on. Someone from our team can hop on and see exactly where you're at. And see exactly where you're at and kind of help you game plan For what's going on. It's the best way to find out about what we do and finally, be kind, leave us a review. That's the real way. You didn't say reviews. Reviews are the way. That is the way the all powerful algorithm Helps the message get out. It helps people be better. All right, so we appreciate you guys, thank you and we'll see you.

Lauren:

See you.