Latest / The Spiritual Parent: Mindful Tools for Raising Spiritual and Conscious Kids / Bonus Mini Episode: Modeling Imperfection and Conscious Living for our Conscious Kids

Transcript

Bonus Mini Episode: Modeling Imperfection and Conscious Living for our Conscious Kids · The Spiritual Parent: Mindful Tools for Raising Spiritual and Conscious Kids

• 0:00
  Carrie: how to not necessarily be a people pleaser, how to draw boundaries, protect their own energy, protect their own hearts at an early age, and it's a really good time to start.
• 0:10
  Carrie: It sounds like very deep conversations, right.
• 0:12
  Carrie: It sounds like really deep things that a six and a nine-year-old wouldn't understand, but I have been doing these types of things since my kid was two.
• 0:20
  Carrie: I know it sounds a little crazy, but you can do a very, very lower version, right, broken down version for a two-year-old, like oh, mommy's so tired right now.
• 0:31
  Carrie: Mommy needs a rest.
• 0:32
  Carrie: Let's read a quiet book together.
• 0:34
  Carrie: Or you read your book here and I'm going to read my book right here.
• 0:38
  Carrie: We're going to set the timer.
• 0:40
  Carrie: When the timer goes off, then we'll read together and we'll play together again.
• 0:44
  Carrie: So you can start it young.
• 0:51
  Carrie: It's just learning how to change the language for the younger kids versus the older kids.
• 0:53
  Carrie: So I'd love for you guys to try it this week.
• 0:54
  Carrie: Think about your perfection.
• 0:56
  Carrie: If you have any perfectionist qualities which I'm assuming there's a little piece of it in all of us.
• 1:02
  Carrie: I'm assuming, if you're listening and tuning in, that there's a little piece of it in you too.
• 1:06
  Carrie: So think about those qualities for yourselves.
• 1:09
  Carrie: Try to notice some of the words and phrases that you're using in your parenting too, because we want to be mindful about how we're addressing our kids too.
• 1:18
  Carrie: Welcome to Heart to Heart Parents.
• 1:20
  Carrie: Let's connect with our kids and learn together.
• 1:25
  Carrie: I'm Carrie.
• 1:25
  Carrie: I was a former teacher and speech therapist.
• 1:26
  Carrie: I'm also a parent of two spirited, gifted, highly sensitive kids.
• 1:31
  Carrie: 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.
• 1:42
  Carrie: I will provide real life experiences and transform them into moments for connections and change for you to use in your house.
• 1:50
  Carrie: Hi there, conscious parents.
• 1:52
  Carrie: It's Keri here with a bite-sized episode for you today.
• 1:56
  Carrie: I decided to release a couple of these every now and then for you guys to get a little quick hit of great conscious parenting info with some great tools to build in your toolbox.
• 2:07
  Carrie: So if you like this episode or any of our episodes, we would love a five-star review and a few word rating, just to give us a little support.
• 2:16
  Carrie: It's an air five way for us to work together.
• 2:19
  Carrie: So have a great day and happy listening.
• 2:21
  Carrie: Hi there, and welcome back to another mini-series.
• 2:25
  Carrie: I'm Carrie and I am your conscious mama.
• 2:29
  Carrie: I'm here to share quick tips with you guys this week.
• 2:33
  Carrie: One of the things that is really important for us conscious parents and raising our conscious kids is to show them that we are human.
• 2:41
  Carrie: We are not perfect.
• 2:42
  Carrie: We are doing the best we can and sometimes we have faults and imperfections as well.
• 2:48
  Carrie: So our kids are watching us and they're also picking up on our emotions as well.
• 2:53
  Carrie: So if I'm having a rough time and a rough day, oftentimes a lot of our kids are going to be feeling that energy.
• 3:01
  Carrie: If I come home from work and I'm stomping around and grumpy and having an awful time, or I'm getting on them a lot about something that they're trying to do and not doing perfectly, then that can be really hard for our kids.
• 3:16
  Carrie: So as we're modeling for them our imperfections, we can stop ourselves or we can say in that moment oh man, mom was being so grumpy, I had a really hard day and now I'm going to do something for myself to help me reset my body.
• 3:36
  Carrie: And you can even like play around with your kids Like what should mom do?
• 3:39
  Carrie: What's an idea that mom can do to try.
• 3:42
  Carrie: You could give them some suggestions, like should mom go jump on the trampoline right now?
• 3:47
  Carrie: Should mom have an ice cold glass of water?
• 3:50
  Carrie: Should mom make herself some tea and sit and read a book?
• 3:53
  Carrie: What are some things that I could do to reset guys?
• 3:56
  Carrie: Or you can even tell them what you're planning to do.
• 4:00
  Carrie: If you are not in the mood to go and jump on the trampoline, then don't give them that suggestion.
• 4:06
  Carrie: Right, you can model hey, I'm really tired.
• 4:09
  Carrie: So these are the things that I'm going to try.
• 4:11
  Carrie: So our kids are watching us, right?
• 4:14
  Carrie: Those are the opportunities to grow ourselves and to help our children grow.
• 4:19
  Carrie: It's really handy when we show ourselves crying, when we show ourselves apologizing and when we show ourselves connecting with others.
• 4:29
  Carrie: If my husband and I are both grumpy and we're snappy with each other, we model apologizing to each other, right?
• 4:36
  Carrie: So if I'm grumpy with my kid, even though my kid is six, I'm still going to apologize.
• 4:42
  Carrie: I'm going to describe what happened and apologize for being short or grumpy or not giving them the time to speak their truth in that moment.
• 4:52
  Carrie: So we're showing them to be human.
• 4:54
  Carrie: We are also going to show them how to ground themselves.
• 4:58
  Carrie: Right, we taught them some of those pieces which one should mom do to ground herself?
• 5:03
  Carrie: And then we're also teaching our kids how to ground themselves in their moment.
• 5:06
  Carrie: You can watch your kid and experiment.
• 5:14
  Carrie: If you haven't worked with like a OT or anybody to help you learn these pieces, I often thought like, oh my kids, when they need to ground themselves, they need their quiet, calm corner.
• 5:20
  Carrie: Nope, I was actually doing the opposite.
• 5:21
  Carrie: My kids, I was actually doing the opposite.
• 5:24
  Carrie: My kids.
• 5:25
  Carrie: They are more a seeker in sensory input and movement.
• 5:30
  Carrie: So jumping on the trampoline, jumping on a hopper ball I don't know if you've seen those balls with the handle on the top, those are great in the winter when you can't go on the trampoline Swinging in a swing, hanging that heavy, heavy input.
• 5:46
  Carrie: So hanging from monkey bars is actually one of my daughter's favorite tasks and when we were watching the Olympics she was like that is my jam.
• 5:53
  Carrie: I'm like it is, it is your jam, because I could not pull you off of those hanging bars when you were 18 months old.
• 5:59
  Carrie: At the gym you were always just hanging along, so little little Olympian in the making here, apparently.
• 6:04
  Carrie: But we are showing them, we are teaching them how they can ground themselves.
• 6:09
  Carrie: That is what works for my kids right.
• 6:11
  Carrie: Note of caution what works for your kids, you have to try different things out.
• 6:16
  Carrie: Some kids really want the lights off the room, quiet, right.
• 6:21
  Carrie: Maybe some calm white noise, maybe some calm therapeutic type music.
• 6:27
  Carrie: I always search for Reiki music R-E-I-K-I on Pandora, that's a calming music that I love with my kids.
• 6:35
  Carrie: Even I put that on in the morning before school.
• 6:37
  Carrie: So you have to watch your kids and see.
• 6:41
  Carrie: Are they wanting sensory seeking?
• 6:44
  Carrie: Are they wanting more of a calm environment?
• 6:46
  Carrie: I myself am not the movement one, although if I have like pent up energy before I'm doing like a new interview and I'm nervous about it, like movement is going to help me.
• 6:55
  Carrie: But other times, when I'm done, at the end of the day, if I've had a rough day, my kids have had a lot of emotions that day then I'm the sit in the corner with all the lights off, the nice comfy, soft blanket watching my reality TV that I shouldn't be watching.
• 7:11
  Carrie: A little honesty there, because we're talking about being human right, not being this perfect box version of what we think, that society thinks we need to be.
• 7:22
  Carrie: So we're showing these kids that it's okay because guess what, one day they are going to make a choice if they're going to go on social media, and we want them to already feel empowered and we want them to already feel like it's okay not to be perfect.
• 7:36
  Carrie: So another thing that I love to talk about with my kids is our energy levels.
• 7:41
  Carrie: That can be a hard one If you have had a long day and say you went back to school shopping.
• 7:48
  Carrie: This happened to me recently.
• 7:49
  Carrie: We went back to school shopping and there was chaos and then we got home and mom had ordered some shoes and they were the wrong shoes.
• 7:57
  Carrie: They didn't feel right, they were funky, and somebody wanted the shoes that they saw at the store and mom, why didn't you buy those?
• 8:03
  Carrie: And mom was already exhausted.
• 8:05
  Carrie: We had been to golf lessons, we had been to eat out at lunch, we had gone back to school shopping, which can also be tiring.
• 8:14
  Carrie: I explained to my kids hey, buddy, mom's energy was up here before we went to golf in the morning.
• 8:23
  Carrie: Then I kind of got down here at lunch.
• 8:25
  Carrie: Now, after we've gone shopping and we've had a very fun, energetic day, mom's energy is down here and you're kind of bringing it.
• 8:32
  Carrie: You're bringing a lot of energy to me right now, bud and mom does not have any receiving input left, like I am at my max, buddy.
• 8:42
  Carrie: So it would really help me if you could go downstairs play with your Legos.
• 8:45
  Carrie: Give me 10 minutes and then we can reset and we can talk about this, maybe even a half an hour.
• 8:50
  Carrie: For extra credit.
• 8:50
  Carrie: I talked to my nine-year-old and I also talked to my six-year-old like that and I explained where my energy level is at and guess what?
• 8:58
  Carrie: He turned around, went downstairs, did his Legos.
• 9:01
  Carrie: Mom could reset.
• 9:11
  Carrie: Mom could put in her head pods, her earbuds I don't know what they're called because I rarely use them only for this.
• 9:14
  Carrie: You can put in your earbuds, you can listen to something, reset yourself and then you are ready and grounded to start again and be energized.
• 9:17
  Carrie: If we are at our maximum, we're going to start yelling.
• 9:19
  Carrie: So that's not setting a good example, right?
• 9:21
  Carrie: We're setting a good example with our kids.
• 9:23
  Carrie: We're also showing them how we can draw boundaries as adults too, how we can draw boundaries.
• 9:30
  Carrie: We're teaching kids to draw boundaries because maybe your kid needs to draw boundaries at school.
• 9:35
  Carrie: Maybe your kid needs to draw boundaries during a play date If somebody is grabbing their toys and being really aggressive with their favorite stuffed animal.
• 9:44
  Carrie: We are teaching them how to not necessarily be a people pleaser, how to draw boundaries, protect their own energy, protect their own hearts at an early age, and it's a really good time to start.
• 9:56
  Carrie: It sounds like very deep conversations, right.
• 9:59
  Carrie: It sounds like really deep things that a six and a nine-year-old wouldn't understand, but I have been doing these types of things since my kid was two.
• 10:07
  Carrie: I know it sounds a little crazy, but you can do a very, very lower version, right, broken down version for a two-year-old, like oh, mommy's so tired right now.
• 10:18
  Carrie: Mommy needs a rest.
• 10:19
  Carrie: Let's read a quiet book together.
• 10:21
  Carrie: Or you read your book here and I'm going to read my book right here.
• 10:25
  Carrie: We're going to set the timer.
• 10:27
  Carrie: When the timer goes off, then we'll read together and we'll play together again.
• 10:34
  Carrie: So you can start it young, it's just learning how to change the language for the younger kids versus the older kids.
• 10:38
  Carrie: So I'd love for you guys to try it this week.
• 10:41
  Carrie: Think about your perfection.
• 10:43
  Carrie: If you have any perfectionist qualities which I'm assuming there's a little piece of it in all of us.
• 10:48
  Carrie: I'm assuming, if you're listening and tuning in, that there's a little piece of it in you too.
• 10:53
  Carrie: So think about those qualities for yourselves.
• 10:55
  Carrie: Try to notice some of the words and phrases that you're using in your parenting too, because we want to be mindful about how we're addressing our kids too.
• 11:04
  Carrie: And also, if you have any opportunities to show, crying, apologizing, connecting with your kids this week and honoring that piece of being human being, humble, being real for your kids, you don't have to be their superhero, you just have to be you.
• 11:21
  Carrie: You show up, you connect, and that's what they're seeking and that's what they're looking for and that's so empowering to them.
• 11:27
  Carrie: So, happy week, conscious parents.
• 11:30
  Carrie: Well, that's a wrap.
• 11:31
  Carrie: Thanks so much for tuning in.
• 11:33
  Carrie: Changemakers.
• 11:33
  Carrie: This is Keri, and I just wanted to send one more reminder.
• 11:36
  Carrie: If you haven't done a review for us, five stars and a little few words about what you've enjoyed in our podcast episodes we would really appreciate it.
• 11:45
  Carrie: One other thing if you guys would like to ever message me, I would love any questions you have or any feedback at info at hearttoheartlifecom.
• 11:56
  Carrie: We also have a brand new website which we're super excited to share.
• 11:59
  Carrie: It's hearttoheartlifecom.
• 12:02
  Carrie: Thanks so much for tuning in and happy life, happy times.
• 12:05
  Carrie: Changemaker families.