We've learned over the years. You find your people and your heart soars right, Everyone. You send it out there. You send that positive energy of I'm ready to connect, I'm ready to find my other soul friends. I'm ready to connect at a deeper level and you'll meet them. They're there, they're out there and they're awesome and they will not judge you. Welcome to Heart to Heart. Parents, let's connect with our kids and learn together. I'm Carrie. I was a former teacher and speech therapist.
Speaker 2
00:41
I'm also a parent of two spirited, gifted, highly sensitive kids. I was quickly brought to my knees as a parent when I thought that I would see a rosy lens version of parenting just as they present on Instagram, but I quickly learned that's not real life.
Speaker 1
00:58
I will provide real life experiences and transform them into moments for connections and change for you to use in your house, with tips that worked for our family and how to implement them in your family. Connect to heart to heart with your child, with your partners and other parents, as we learn that we are not alone. We have a community and, although maybe we feel different from other families, there are many of us out there and we are creating the next era of deep thinkers and change makers. Come along with me on this journey with Heart to Heart Parents. Hi, and welcome back to another episode of Heart to Heart Parents podcast. I'm Keri. I'm your friendly, empath and intuitive mom here, ready to discuss some other new topics with you guys.
01:49
One thing I am looking at this week is talking to my kids, talking to myself and talking to my husband about friendships. Friendships is a huge piece of love in our family and something that we have been talking about. Our kids switched schools, so it was a huge part of their lives, and we also have moved around a lot in the last few years, my husband and I, so it's a piece of our lives is ongoing and making new friendships and keeping our old friendships alive and all of those pieces of the puzzles. I wanted to share a little bit about my perspective being an empath, a sensitive person, a people pleaser, a former perfectionist, former people pleaser. And also one other thing to think about, too is when we say empath, it doesn't necessarily mean that you are an introvert, so I myself, as an introvert, I have outgoing. One other thing to think about, too is when we say empath, it doesn't necessarily mean that you are an introvert, so I myself, as an introvert, I have outgoing tendencies. So a lot of people around me always think that I'm an extrovert and it's just. I've trained myself to be like that and if I'm really comfortable with somebody, then I'm definitely more in the extroverted side. So that's something to keep in mind as you're watching your children grow up and grow into their personalities, and something to keep in mind for yourself as you start to kind of think about your history with friendships, what your current friendships look like and future friendships that you are hoping to grow in the future.
03:23
My perspective starts with me growing up as an only child and also in a medium-sized town in Idaho where we moved to from Southern California. So as a child I was always searching for deeper connections. I did not realize this when I was a little kid. I wasn't that little 40-year-old woman inside five-year-old Carrie going around looking for deep connections. I just kind of have realized this and learned this along my way. As I look back at my friendships and what I was seeking when I would always look for new friends, I was really excited about making friends. I always, always have wanted friends and that's how I've been.
04:04
As an adult too, I seek connections with people and I always have had a hard time having surface level connections. It's not something that works well for me and I've realized that in my current situation. I actually realized this more recently that I really search for fewer amounts of friends when I can have a deep, deep, meaningful conversation with versus how's the weather, how's it going, what activities are you guys involved in? Those are not friendships that I really want to put in a ton of time and effort with. I will totally chat it up, like any mama will, but it's just something that can be a little bit more exhausting to my energy is maintaining those more surface level friendships. So one thing I think about when I look back at my childhood was how other children were kind of like butterflies, where they would flutter from friend to friend and that's just how they interacted and engaged and changed through these cycles of friendships. I'm looking at it from a girl scenario, of course. I did not live a boy childhood, so I do not know what those pieces look like and it's definitely been a learning curve as I follow this, along with my daughter and my son. They are their own little people, they have their own little personalities, so I'm definitely bringing in my perspective, but I'm also going to try to acknowledge their little personalities, their perspectives, as well.
05:35
So, as I went through school, it really wasn't until college where I really felt so comfortable in blossoming into my own person that I really started to make really deep friendships and connections. I had a lot of them along the way, a couple that really really stuck. You guys know who you are, love you guys and I really blossomed in college where I could meet friends that had similar interests and values and we could hit some of those deeper level conversations. You're older, you're more mature, and that's just where I really felt at home and really blossomed. One recent thing that happened, that I am realizing as I look back over my history of friendships for myself, for my husband, even like my mom, we talk about this at her age too, in the retirement age. It's all pieces for all of us and it doesn't really change as we get older. I feel like we get more knowledgeable, but there's still those pieces where sometimes we see people who may have insecurities in their life that come up. Sometimes we see people who are really confident. We're like, wow, look at that energy, that's awesome Power on sister. So it's kind of interesting to think about. Even when we're in different phases and different pieces of our lives, we still have these pieces of friendships, insecurities, confidences that come into play. So that's something I love to kind of keep in mind as I talk about this.
07:01
When I look back at 2020, I know it was a hard piece of life for a lot of us and even as a very, very confident introvert, I really missed connections with people. I didn't realize this. I thought I was okay. Everybody thought they were okay. My son he definitely wanted to be outside playing with all the kids, playing with all the kids, and he would often watch them outside playing and it was really hard. That was a real struggle for us, having these friendships and these pieces of this puzzle. My husband and I felt in our hearts that we should be a little bit more strict, which was kind of a social challenge for us. We were behind masks for longer. We didn't go outside and play in the street right away in the spring, the summer of 2020. We were more restricted. We didn't know.
07:56
For us, our story was, my husband was figuring out if he was celiac, if he had a gluten intolerance, if that meant that he had a autoimmune disorder, if that would cause problems, if we did contract COVID. So this was all a piece that we didn't discuss with everybody and it was also hard as people pleasers and sensitive people being around so many people. As we started to open up into society again in 2021 and fall of 2021, when our kids started to go back to school, it was really hard for my husband and I because we were still so careful and safe with our kids. Our kids didn't have vaccines yet, so we didn't know. We were still trying to understand. What does it look like if my husband really has celiac? What does it look like if our kids do not have vaccines yet. So it was this whole piece of the puzzle that we did not understand ourselves and we erred on the safety side. That's just who we are and the choice we made.
08:56
My husband and I unfortunately feel like we were a little bit judged during that time because some people were really open and didn't have to worry about it like we did, and so we feel like we were looked at maybe a little bit more conservative than others and it was really hard because we wanted friendships and we wanted to be around people, but we were also really safe. So to others in the outside it looked like we were maybe antisocial, which was really hard on our hearts. So we're still kind of healing from that. But we've learned over the years you find your people and your heart soars right, everyone. You send it out there. You send that positive energy of I'm ready to connect. I'm ready to find my other soul friends. I'm ready to connect at a deeper level and you'll meet them. They're there, they're out there and they're awesome and they will not judge you if you're wearing a mask or you need social distance or your kids need to play outside with a mask during those days of 2021.
09:59
Oh that life. It's kind of nice to move on, but I still do think about those pieces of with this person that I'm communicating with. Would they judge me if I was wearing a mask? It's just in my heart and it's something that kind of emulates through me and it's a piece of my puzzle that will always live on. Thank you, thank you, 2020, I guess, for giving me this little mindset. I don't know if it's positive or negative. It's something I work through for myself.
10:26
All of these pieces of how I have dealt with friendships, how I have found friendships, what works for me as I've learned to be the best version of myself, have really taught me what I'm looking for for my kids and how I'm going to teach my kids. My kids are two very different kids, so it's been really interesting to watch them grow and blossom. My son is more similar to myself and my daughter's more similar to my husband, so it's been really interesting because they're also the opposite genders. So, as I'm starting to talk to my son about certain social situations and what worked well for me as a kid, what I learned as a growing up through my human phases, I'm also thinking well, he's a boy and boys may not react in the same way that girls would Definitely, and their friendships look different than girls' friendships at this age he's almost nine friendships at this age he's almost nine. So I like to share I'll share some pointers of what worked great for me with my kids and what has continued to work great as we've learned how to connect with other kids for them, how they've blossomed in both of their schools for them, how they blossom in their community. It's been really, really heartlifting to watch this.
11:47
These kids moved into a town during the pandemic so they didn't know anyone. They moved away from their grandparents and it's been really, really uplifting to find them soaring, soaring. And you guys all know we are raising these kids that had these moments during a pandemic where they were inside their houses or they wore masks when they went back to school and they communicated through masks Maybe some of them. It was hard for them to develop great speaking tools because they were wearing masks. So how are we still looking at these kids coming out and trying to remember that? There is a piece of the puzzle that was harder for them. They went through several years of wearing masks, communicating through computers. They went through these periods of time where they did not get to physically be in the same room as other people. So keep that in mind.
12:44
As your kids are growing up, don't forget this pandemic. It was a two-year process for my kids. It was a huge piece of the puzzle. Whenever I'm talking to kindergarten teachers, if there's something that comes up socially for my daughter or something that I see or hear about going on in kindergarten, I approach the teachers and I remind them of this piece of the puzzle because I feel like, even though we're two years out of it, it's still there. It's still a piece of their lives and a piece of their, a huge piece of their developmental time. My daughter she was two, 18 months during this time and that was a huge time when I would have had her in all these play groups and play dates and music classes, but instead we were at home and we were playing with her brother and the pod family that we podded with. So, as we're working through this, always remember that, yes, we're out of it. Yes, it feels so good to spread our wings and fly away from it, but there's still pieces that come back for us. There are still pieces that we may need to work through and specifically target teaching, friendships and social situations. These are pieces that I think about when I'm working with my kids.
13:59
Some of the tools that work really well for me are listening to my kids. Some of the tools that work really well for me are listening to my kids. So we often do this at dinnertime. We don't have any devices on. My husband and I put our phones away. We're not texting or emailing or anything. It's really important in us, in our family. We do that at restaurants, we do that at home. We eat outside, sometimes to connect with nature All of these pieces. We do not have devices out and I'd really recommend that, because a huge piece of our teaching them to eat mindfully, teaching them to try new foods, listening to them share their day. Dinner time is a huge piece of the time when we can connect and we can talk about our day, and that also helps to build the trust with your child so that they can talk about things with you, they can feel safe and they can feel at home. They can share what happened to them that day.
14:52
Sometimes I'll read how they're feeling. Are they feeling open right now? Are they really tired? If they're really tired, it's definitely not the time to talk to them. It's definitely not the time to probe. Who did you play with at recess? What did you guys play today? Who would you like to have a play date with? Probably not the time when they're sleeping, when they're sleepy, when they're exhausted, when they're getting sick. All those pieces Always watch their body cues, their body signs. What do their eyes look like? Are they alert? Are they feeling happy? Are they excited? So I ask them how are you feeling? How was your day? And I do ask those questions who did you play with at recess? Who have you felt so comfortable with lately? I was so excited A little tangent, a little love on the school we moved to.
15:39
I was so excited when the kids my two kids were giving their evaluations of themselves during their conferences. So they led their conference themselves. They told us about their reading scores, their math scores, their writing, their science, all the different pieces of the puzzle in school. And then they pulled out the social emotional piece. And for my daughter in kindergarten it was like here's how I feel about making friends. Here are my friends, what I like to do with my friends, what I like to do in class. It was so wonderful to see these pieces of this puzzle for my kiddos. After we've been through pandemics, we've changed schools and this is a huge piece of the puzzle for them and their happiness is their social emotional growth. So that was a little tangent.
16:25
I always love to ask teachers at conferences if they're not open about it. I love to ask who are they playing with? Are they making friends? Do they look happy in class? All of these pieces to find those little pieces of what their day is looking like. So when my kids are telling me about their day, I like to ask them. I like to ask them how did you feel in that moment? If they tell me, oh, so-and-so is playing with so-and-so today and I didn't get to join them or they only played together, I'll ask them how did you feel?
16:56
And if I'm talking to my kindergartner, I'm thinking in my mind she may not be able to name the emotion, jealous, that might be an emotion that's complicated to describe, complicated to acknowledge and understand. So I provide an example and I name the emotion for myself. I don't necessarily name it for her. Like you were feeling this. I don't want to do it in an authoritative version because I'm establishing that trust and that relationship building piece. So I'll name the emotion for myself. So I'll say something like oh, when I went out to coffee with my two friends so-and-so and so-and-so, I was feeling really jealous because the two of them started talking about this situation, this conversation, where they went to California and I hadn't been to California in a long time. So I felt really left out. So you know what I did I was feeling jealous, and then I'll provide something, an example of what I could do to fix the situation for them. So I would say something like I was feeling really jealous. So then, once they were kind of finishing off on their conversation, I said do you guys want to go hiking tomorrow? Or I said hey, have you guys seen this new movie? Have you read this new book? I will give an example of what we could do, an activity that they could lead them into, things like that.
18:21
So three is often a crowd that can be hard. It happens to boys and girls, it happened to my son and I also want to think in my mind. I tell my kids oftentimes my daughter, she will like to shut down Like I don't want to be friends with so-and-so because they always play with my friend and I want to play with that friend. That's come up a lot and I remember that as a kid too. So what I talk about because our kids are so sensitive that it really helps to provide examples, specific, specific wording and phrases that they can use. Let's teach them tools. Let's not shut down. Let's not shut off from those experiences. Let's not tell them oh, they're not your friend, you don't need to play with them anymore. Let's provide examples of maybe so-and-so is really playing with so-and-so lately.
19:13
But how about we try a play date with each one of them? The play dates are really great. They've worked really well for my daughter. She starts to play with this kiddo and then she feels safe at school playing with them. And also the carrier phrases. Sometimes I'll teach them like if they want to play super kitties that's one of my daughter loves to play with her girlfriends Say one of the girls is demanding, she wants to play super kitties. I've taught my daughter to say things like okay, let's play Super Kitties this recess. Next time can I choose to play Spider-Man? Can we play Spider-Man next recess? I would love to be the leader next recess and it's really been empowering for her because she has a shy piece of the puzzle for her and also just the pandemic time right, I've got to teach her some of these phrases and some of these tools to have in her pocket. It's been really good and also sometimes I hold her accountable.
20:12
So I will say I want you to try this on Monday and then Monday afternoon I'm going to ask you and see if it works. It's okay. If you don't feel comfortable and you don't want to do it, it's okay. But if you feel really powerful and strong on Monday, I want you to try it because I think you could do it. I have faith in you. I know you're going to be able to do it. And guess what guys? She did it. It was amazing. Even when we started our new school. It was so funny.
20:43
She kept playing with this one little kiddo that we knew from that overlapped. We knew before school started. So it was really fun for her to have a friend and she kept playing with the one kiddo. But I really wanted her to experience and I wanted to give her a little bit of a challenge to make new friends. And so I asked her do you think you can try and make a new friend? She said, okay, I'm going to try it. I'm really scared. I, I don't know. I don't know mom, but I said I know you can do it. So she went in and she came home from school the next day she said mom, guess what? I asked so and so if they would be my friend. And they said yes. I started laughing because I I loved the little innocence of I asked her to be my friend and she said yes, but it was really cute and she was empowered. She felt awesome. So now she said I'm good at making friends, I can do it, and it was amazing to see this growth. It's pretty powerful. So that's something that I love to do.
21:36
Also, when the kids are going through these pieces of I don't like so-and-so, so-and-so only plays with this other person, I kind of talk to them about cycles and phases of friendship. So sometimes I'll use a specific term like cycle. Okay, I've noticed that sometimes friends will cycle. They'll play with so-and-so for a long time, but guess what, they're still your friend and they'll come back. You can play with who you feel comfortable with. You can go up to somebody and ask to play. You can find somebody who doesn't have a buddy. We talk openly about all of these things. I give examples and I give some phrases of how they can approach people hey, can I play with you? And those kinds of things. I won't get too much into that because I feel like you guys can make up those phrases yourself, but feel free to always reach out to me.
22:26
Heart to Heart Parents Podcast on Instagram, think Clearly app on Facebook. You can reach out to me and ask me any questions or I'm happy to help. So one thing I wanted to talk about is If your kiddo looks like they're feeling negative, if they're having something that was like a negative experience, I always ask how did you feel? And we definitely want to name that emotion like we talked about with jealousy. We can provide an example of how it felt for us. So I would say like in that it sounds like maybe your heart was a little hurt in that situation. If that happened to me, I think I would feel hurt and sad and maybe I would want to play with somebody else for a day, but then I would come back and try it again, or maybe I would feel comfortable going up and playing the next day. But I give them some options. I'm not going to tell them exactly what to do. I'm going to say, well, maybe this might work for me. What do you think about that? It's really good to not be bossy but, depending on your child, you can read how they're reacting to your advice. You can feel what to say and what feels good to you. You can see in their face what feels good to them.
23:46
My two kids are people pleasers and they are trying to provide the best version of themselves. I can understand this because I go through that myself. I'm a recovering version of it, so I definitely have a thicker skin, but I remember as a kid I did not have that thick of a skin. Have a thicker skin, but I remember as a kid I did not have that thick of a skin. I was fearful about not having any friends and I was worried that if I was myself or if I showed my imperfections, that we wouldn't have friends. I'm sure some of you guys can maybe feel this and understand it. I've worked through a lot of therapy for myself in my own way, where I think I've talked about this in previous episodes and I'm sorry, but I feel like this really helps because it brings it up again.
24:32
I picture the version of myself playing with friends when I would feel left out or if it was a group of three or something like that, or I didn't feel a connection with somebody and I felt hurt at that moment. I picture my tiny version of myself and I picture my whole version now, at 40 years old. That's me, that's my age. I picture my strong version of myself, the best version in my mom hat, my parenting role, talking to the younger version of myself and describing you are a great friend, you are perfect as you are. You are whole and complete and I love you and it's okay to show your true self because we love you for who you are. You are powerful and amazing. And I picture my older version of myself giving the younger version of myself a hug.
25:19
I'm just describing this scenario because if there are pieces that you have left over, you can do these techniques and try them for yourself to help you heal in your own ways, which helps your kids too, because that energy they pick up any energy. They pick up any fear or any emotion that we may have when we're describing situations. So it's really good to help ourselves and it's part of parenting is learning. What is this child bringing up in my life that I need to work on myself. It's amazing, but when we can think of it like that version, it really helps us to heal our own.
25:52
When I'm looking at my two people pleasers, my two kiddos, I think about and I describe what wouldn't feel good. So I describe to them what a friendship looks like and I can describe what wouldn't feel good. So if someone is teasing me in a way that doesn't feel good, if someone is playing in a way that doesn't feel safe or happy or bring out great emotions in me, or I notice my kid is talking about this, I'm going to describe it and help them through it. My two people pleasers may push these emotions aside because they don't want to look different. They don't want to lose that friendship and they're coming at it from fear, right or insecurities. So I'm trying to help them understand these pieces now so they don't have to understand it when they're 40.
26:42
Also, if they don't like, I tell my kids if that friend doesn't like this about you, do you think they're a good friend? We work through that. We describe an example of if your friend doesn't like that you started crying because you didn't get two scoops of ice cream like they did and you only got one. Do you think they're being a good friend? Well, maybe they will come around and see you in a different way, but we describe how a good friend is going to see you how you really are, and they're going to be accepting of your imperfections, because we all are truly perfect and we have our moments. So we talk about it like that. We talk about it being okay to be you, to always be you. Don't feel like you have to pretend to like baseball or know all the baseball statistics or know all the Pokemon cards. It's okay to not care about. For my little guy he's not super into sports per se, so it's okay not to care to know all the sports statistics. It's okay. It's okay to be you because, guess what, maybe the kiddo who likes a certain sport maybe he'll connect with you in science. He probably has different pieces to him that you connect in. So another piece that I tell my kids too is there are many friends around. If this one kiddo someday goes play with another kid, you still have lots of other friends you can choose from.
28:14
And also reaching out to other parents to help establish play dates and try to really help build a community in our area has been so powerful for my kids. I've really worked hard to help them with that. I know I would have loved that when I was a kid. I would have loved to feel a connection and just feel at home with different families, so that's been really good when we've done that for my two kids. I love when I can just have a family come over. They bring their kids, they come over, mom stays to chat because we haven't seen each other in months and it's just it's it's soul to soul connection and it's so powerful and healing and I'm speaking from experience and my heart just feels warm and I have a smile on my face because I know if you're not there yet, you'll find it and send it out to the universe that it's important in your heart and send out that energy that's also looking for your energy, because there's people out there looking for that same connection.
29:12
One other thing I've shared with my kids is it's okay if we have friends that are in a phase of our life and when we move into a new phase of our lives we make new friends. That was a huge learning curve for us. We had to switch schools and we had really great friends at one school. We changed over to another school. It was super duper hard to say goodbye to some of those friends, but it's not goodbye, it's. Luckily we're still in the same community, so we still get to reach out and play with them, which has been amazing for my kids' hearts and my hearts too, because I miss some of those mamas and papas.
29:45
But I'm teaching my kids that I still have friends from every phase of my life and they continue with me and I've learned from them and it's okay to make new friends. You don't have to hold on to that one friendship that hinders you from making new friends. So those are some key pieces of pointers about friendship that I have learned for myself, that I've healed in myself and my heart I share with my own kids, and I hope that it gives you some valuable insight. You can always reach out to me at heart to heart parents podcast. I am still working on a website. It's almost done. So, you guys, I'm really excited to share that with you and eventually I will have more contact information there, because I would love to hear stories about things that work for your kids, things that you have learned in your life as empaths, as sensitive people, as intuitives or introverts, any of those pieces that come into play for you. I love to connect, so thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 2
30:49
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