Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / Being Yourself Around Your Kids: A Novel Idea In Today's Child-Centered Society

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Being Yourself Around Your Kids: A Novel Idea In Today's Child-Centered Society · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

0:05
Hi everybody, and welcome to the doctors.
0:07
Psych mom show today. I wanted to discuss the crazy
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topic of being yourself around your kids.
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Not beating yourself around your kids, which is what that sounded
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like that is actually what most people doing.
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Today's child-centered society is so flagellate about how
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horrible they are in front of their kids.
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But what I meant to say was being yourself having your
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actual personality unapologetically around your
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children, which is great. Crazy idea that I believe makes
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life a lot easier and is less toxic and dysfunctional for
0:42
yourself image as well as all of your family relationships and
0:45
before we dive into that I just wanted to encourage you yet
0:49
again to subscribe. My subscriber list is growing
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that is great and you get access to all of my subscriber only
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episodes on kneading and some self-esteem at what women want
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1:04
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1:09
you can also join my secret Facebook group that it has a lot
1:12
of fun people in it with a lot of nice discussions.
1:16
And so, let's get back to the topic at hand.
1:18
I feel that the tide is finally turning.
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Thank God, the pendulum is swinging.
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I predicted this. Like, you know, would eventually
1:26
come but I just read an article and posted it on my Facebook
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page. I think it was from the New York
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or possibly the Atlantic about the harsh.
1:34
Shhhh reign of gentle parenting or something, it was called the
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Harsh Realm of gentle parenting. I don't remember.
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But anyway talked about this parenting philosophy of gentle
1:44
parenting and how it can actually make parents crazy and
1:49
feel like they have to pick and choose exactly the right words
1:51
to validate their kids. And you can't tell a kid to just
1:54
put his shoes on because what if he doesn't want to put his shoes
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on and you never allowed to do anything, even possibly
2:00
potentially that could hurt the child's feelings ever.
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So then, really, what do you ever Going to do to get them to
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do anything when they have to do something.
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And so this author was talking about how this is making parents
2:15
extremely anxious and it's incredibly difficult to do in
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real life. And so, since this is being
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published, I feel that perhaps the pendulum is swinging back
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against this sort of crazy. Making a child-centered,
2:29
obsessional Hothouse parenting that I constantly real against
2:33
myself. So, yet again, I earlier than
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the trend, super cool Trend Setter.
2:41
And what an interesting part about this whole gentle
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parenting movement. It's like, kind of like assumes
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that if you tell your kid to do something when they don't want
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to, that they're going to end up traumatized and like, kids are
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so resilient children survived concentration camps, you know
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what I mean? So many of my clients have
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survived horrible childhoods. You know?
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And it wasn't about Anybody telling you to put on your shoes
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in like a harsh tone of voice. So it is interesting to think
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that. So many of these things actually
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make parents feel kind of like, they can't be their real self.
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And so that's kind of what I'm talking about here is like many
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parents of today, really don't even think that being their
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actual self and having their actual personality around their
3:30
kids is the goal or is even healthy for the kids.
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And and in fact, a lot of men in particular are really the yell
3:41
dad by their wives for showing anything of their outside, the
3:46
home personality in front of their kids.
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So like the same guy that's like, you know, like really
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assertive and even aggressive at work like he's supposed to come
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home and like not even like like Ever Raised his voice ever and
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not be competitive playing a game with the kid and Ask
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everything and basically the same tone of voice as the
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mother, and of course, I've written about this and did a
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podcast on this about, like, how your husband doesn't have to
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treat the kid, just the same as you do, and the child can
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actually learn that. There are many different
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personality types. So one personality type that
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they should learn about is yours, whoever's listening to
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this, whatever your personality type is, I would be willing to
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say that in this parenting climate.
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You have told yourself that your child should not really be
4:32
exposed to it, or to, Out of it or to any of it.
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And I'm not saying like you need to tell dirty jokes to your
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kids, if that's what you do with your buddies, obviously, not.
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But like, if you have a sense of humor, you know, then you're
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allowed to have a sense of humor with your kids.
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If sometimes you tease friends, sometimes you could tease your
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kids and obviously a developmentally appropriate way.
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But, you know, there are not everybody is has the effect of
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Preschool teacher and or a nun or something, and this like a
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beatific benevolent presence that only thinks of the child
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and smiles and it's interested in child activities, despite not
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being a child, which is, you know, rare honestly.
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So whatever your personality is, why not actually think that you
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need to share it and then moderate some parts of it.
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Has thinking and I know people don't articulate this in their
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heads, but seems to be honestly, what I interpret is that many
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parents nowadays, think they need to create out of whole
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cloth and entirely new personality befitting, a parent
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and that will be their parent identity and personality.
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And it really has very little overlap in a Venn diagram that
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with their other personality. The one that anyone else
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recognizes, you know, them as so.
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And you know, in the book all joy and no fun by For senior
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that I always recommend. This is already an old book by
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this point or, you know, maybe 10 years old, I don't know, but
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she talks about I think or could be from somewhere else but about
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how, when is soon as people turn into parents, they like kind of
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get rid of all their single friends and they have like this
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whole new personality that's like only based around the kids
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and that doesn't really need to happen, you know.
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It didn't used to happen in previous generations, people
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used to have different personalities, you know.
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But now Supposed to have kind of the same personality and it's
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the personality of like a teacher or daycare worker or
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something like that. And everybody isn't a teacher or
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daycare worker. Everybody doesn't have Infinity.
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Patience. Everybody doesn't like watching
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G rated movies. Everybody doesn't like singing
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songs that rhyme everybody doesn't like doing these things.
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So, having whatever your own personality is, it's not a bad
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thing, you just need to moderate it a little bit for your Old
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when it's not developmentally appropriate, right?
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So if part of what you really like to do is to ski really fast
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downhill, then you're skiing with your kids, you're not going
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to ski really fast downhill with kids, that don't know how to
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ski, right? But you are gonna go skiing,
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you're gonna take them on the bunny slope.
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You're not going to take them down the fast Hill yet.
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So it's very similar with any other aspect of your
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personality. That you may have subconsciously
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felt had to be exercised in its entirety because it wasn't beef.
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Fitting your parent identity. So, people do this, with any
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hint of competitiveness aggression, assertion
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self-assertion expression of their own needs.
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That one really goes away pretty quick nowadays, any hobby?
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That isn't child-friendly women in particular, get rid of
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quickly. Any sorts of Music, even that
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you listen to? I mean, I understand you're not
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going to have like gangster rap lyrics, but people will put on
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child music instead of Their Own.
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Music, how was music ever? Decided to not be
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child-friendly. Unless, of course, it has
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horrible violent lyrics, but I'm sure that everybody listening to
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this remembers listening to the music that their parents liked
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as kids and then grown to like it.
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But now people many, many more people only listen to what the
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child likes and the child likes something that probably neither
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parent really likes. And so then why would the child
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get to choose that all the time? Or possibly, even any of the
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time in the car, when the child is not driving, you know, the
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parent needs to be listening to what they want because they are
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doing the work of driving perhaps.
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So even this has kind of gone away and people have deferred
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more and more to what the child wants which I discussed
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frequently. But also taking away parts of
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their personality that don't cohere with the idea of what a
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parent identity supposed to look like.
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And this really Makes you feel really tired all the time
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because you're always changing your personality.
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It's kind of like being in a service occupation where you
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have to be smiling all the time, you know, like you, it's like
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being a waitress and it's, you know, and you can't be
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energetic. When you're also simultaneously
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trying to squash whatever parts of your personality could
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potentially be construed as less than ideal for your child.
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And so it makes parenting very tiring.
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It makes it feel like something you need.
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Johnson breaks from or you're going to die because you never
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get to really feel natural. Don't feel natural around your
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own kids and you don't feel like the things that you go to say.
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And this is particularly true for adult children of
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dysfunctional families, who don't have an automatic default.
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When they go back in their mind, they don't have something that
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like, oh, I'll just say what mom always said this.
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Like, well, he'll know, I know what not to say least.
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I know one thing not to say, it's my mom always said, but
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they don't know what to say, but Instead of defaulting to
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whatever they would say to anyone else, another adult, you
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know, as they have been doing for x amount of decades, they
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have like no idea what to say. Because there's no overlap
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between thinking of your child as a and thinking of other
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people. The child isn't supposed to be
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just like a person you hang out with, of course, they're not
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just a person you hang out with. I'm not an idiot right there.
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A person, you love a little person that came out of your
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body or your partner's body that you love.
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To hang out with and sometimes hate to hang out with, but the
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are still just a person. They're just a family member and
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it's really different to start to think about your child as
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just another family member with whom you can have your same
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personality. I talked about this in my
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article, tell your kids about your work, many people don't
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tell their kids, anything about their work as people had the
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most fascinating jobs, their kids don't know shit, what they
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do at all. People who are like high up like
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science medicine law, He literally knows one word lawyer.
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You know that's what they do. I'm talking about kids were like
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eight years old, not talking about a three-year-old that's
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pretty good. If your three-year-old knows
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lawyer is not so good. If your eight-year-old Only
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Knows lawyer like do they not know any of your like what you
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do? Like your clients obviously not
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confidential material but something that's interesting
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that could make them understand you better.
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This certainly is a part of your personality and something that
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you should discuss for many reasons that I discuss in that
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article helps your children be proud of, you understand about
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the value of hard work, you know, a lots of things.
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But anyhow, there besides work, there are plenty of other
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aspects of you. Kids love to hear stories about
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when you were their age. They love to hear stories about
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when you are any age. That isn't your current age any
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time before they were born anything before they start
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remembering. You know, they really love to
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hear things about what you think your motives Asians but parents
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don't think that this is like part of that, you know,
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acceptable repertoire of things that they could talk to their
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kids about the acceptable repertoire from what I could
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tell seems to be things about what happened to the childhood
12:17
that day or that are coming up in the near future.
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That is so boring. I'm how many times can you ask
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your child? What happened to them that day
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in school and them tell you nothing and then you're supposed
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to even get creative. Oh well then you know how was
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art with Miss Smith man I don't even remember it.
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Name. The kids are teacher, but you're
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supposed to remember it. And you're supposed to ask about
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the individual kids in the class, like, you don't have
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enough kids of your own or people in your own life and your
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own work, and you got to remember it and all of this
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different stuff like, yeah, it's good.
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If you're the kind of person who can remember all of that and
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it's interested in it, but if you are not, then you could
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think talk about other things that are interesting with your
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child to things that you want to talk about things about topics
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that interest, both you and your child.
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And if you're somebody Says that there's nothing this just
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because you haven't been thinking of this is a
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possibility even, so there's no interest that you have that you
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are excited about that cannot possibly excite your child.
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Just the idea of a parent being excited and enthusiastic and
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wanting to share something can make a child excited and
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enthusiastic and want to share something.
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My son asks, me all the time and my daughters to lesser extent
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but because he is more interested than they are.
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But They'll still ask, how is the market?
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Because I follow the stock market.
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So they'll ask about that, right?
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They'll ask about how my clients were or what I did.
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If I went out, you know, with either friends or with my
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husband, it would buy what we ate and what we did.
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So, you know, your children are super interested and curious
13:52
about your life. If you act like yourself, and if
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you act enthusiastic about yourself and your life and your
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interest, then they will join your enthusiasm.
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If you act vaguely. Reddick about anything that you
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do think or have ever experienced that is unrelated to
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what a prototypical child would find.
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Interesting. Then you are doing yourself a
14:13
disservice and a disservice to your children as well.
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They already know how to be children.
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They don't need you to tell them how to be children or to join
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them constantly in their activities, which they could do
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with other children. Even only children can do that
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on play dates and so forth and of course as an only child
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myself, I believe you really need to have a lot of playdates.
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Most parents of only children understand this but then you can
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also do many things that you enjoy to like your child can
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read a book next to you. While you read a book that you
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like you don't always have to be reading a book to your child
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especially after a certain age, you can be reading the same book
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by the time they get up to any middle-grade author, you can if
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you're going to read a book with them you get to pick at least
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half the time and then you can discuss the book with that.
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So there's many books of you know, there are super You're
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saying is you got especially into middle school and often
15:07
even before that Matilda Roald Dahl's all his books.
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Loads of them, I mean, lots and lots of books that you remember
15:14
from when you were young, all of your favorite books, my oldest
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daughter, Read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which is something
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that I always liked when I was her age and younger.
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And then I reread A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and then we talked
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about it. And all of that, that was really
15:29
great and that was something that she originally didn't want
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to read. She thought it looked boring.
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Because I mean, was published in 1940, which was a lot longer
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ago, for her than it was for me when I read it in, you know,
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1990 but eventually, you know, couple chapters in, she really
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started to like it and it's something that we refer to a lot
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now. So do not be shy to share your
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own interest in your own personality, with your children
15:56
in therapy. Later in life.
15:58
People constantly, tell me that they wish they knew their
16:01
parents better. What better time to start than
16:04
They're still living in your home.
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So share things that you would never think to share with your
16:09
kids unapologetically and happily and enthusiastically
16:14
about your interests, your hobbies, your preferences who
16:17
you were as a kid who you are now, where do you see your life
16:20
going? You know, what are your goals in
16:23
your career and otherwise what, you know, there's so much about
16:28
you. All the things that you Google
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search during a day, when you're bored, how many of those would
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you share with your kids? Assuming they are You know PG
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rated which they usually are quite honestly, you know, and so
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we even like vacation destinations that's a great
16:43
conversation to have with your kids but most people don't tell
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their kids shit until they say oh we're going on a vacation
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here and don't worry. It has a kids club and it's
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going to have pizza every night. They don't worry what a
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beautiful. Wonderful gift, you're giving
16:57
your child of doing anything, that is a fun vacation, never
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mind that it has to be tailored exactly to their interest.
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Certainly, Is wonderful to take a child to an amusement park or
17:06
something like that, but they can also do whatever it is that
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you like to do on travel and enjoy that as well, because
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people's Fondest Memories come from their parents being happy.
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So remember that not faking happy.
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Because if all you do is go to Six Flags, you're going to be
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faking happy. Unless, of course, you're Six
17:27
Flags Aficionado and you love amusement parks, in which case
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you're awesome. But I bet your spouse doesn't
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love them as much. And maybe the kids would also
17:36
like going bird-watching or whatever the hell your spouse
17:38
likes to do people's Fondest Memories of their parents when
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they recount them in therapy or doing things that their parents
17:46
loved and introduced them to introduce them.
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To not a kid coming home from school saying, I learned how to
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make these bracelets out of rubber bands, you want to do it
17:55
for the next 25 times that we hanged out and the parent being
17:58
like sure while they secretly fantasize about just taking
18:01
like, you know all the rubber bands and throwing them out the
18:04
window. So instead they remember things
18:07
like when my dad taught me to fish, or when my mom took me to
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this Museum exhibit that she loved, or when I went to, you
18:16
know, see this show with my grandma or like, whatever it
18:20
was. Usually people recount things
18:22
that are what a parent liked and introduce the child to there.
18:27
By the child felt special to be into the parents special orbit
18:32
and understand more about the parent as a person versus just,
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you know, and they have some nice memories to of like, my
18:41
mother would play dolls with me. Or my father, would play ball
18:44
with me. Sure.
18:44
But the majority of people listening to this podcast
18:47
already. Do that stuff.
18:49
Don't forget. All the other things where the
18:53
child is says, I mean, like my youngest likes to go to the
18:57
dump, my husband is the craziest thing and he's not old enough
19:01
yet to like throw things out at the Dump.
19:04
When there's like, you know, stuff from construction
19:06
projects, he can't get out yet. So we were talking about
19:10
something some like real estate project or something and then my
19:15
son said, but so that if that's in like you know, ten years,
19:20
I'll be old enough to go to the, to go to the dump and actually
19:25
throw the stuff. So like you never know what the
19:28
kid is actually going to pick up on as something that they
19:32
specially enjoy and that they Her a special privilege and a
19:36
great part of hanging out with you and if you indulge more of
19:41
your own true self and your likes and dislikes and
19:44
preferences and sense of humor and goals and aspirations and
19:48
thought to style then parenting will no longer feel like
19:51
parenting. But just like living your life
19:54
in a liberating way around somebody who you are bonding to
19:59
your kid in a way that doesn't always have to be so
20:03
specifically delineate. Dated as parenting, a child of X
20:07
age. Right, and wouldn't that be a
20:09
relief? All right, so if this spoke to
20:12
you then, please do share it with your partner.
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Use it to spark a discussion and subscribe.
20:18
I'll talk to everybody soon.