Latest / Beautifully Complex / 322: Your Child’s Big Emotions Are the Way Through, Not the Problem, with Tosha Schore

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322: Your Child’s Big Emotions Are the Way Through, Not the Problem, with Tosha Schore · Beautifully Complex

0:01
Speaker 1: Really, what our kids need is for us to simply
0:04
Speaker 1: be present with them and accept them in that moment
0:08
Speaker 1: exactly as they are for who they are. There's plenty
0:11
Speaker 1: of time for guiding and helping and all of that,
0:14
Speaker 1: but there's actually going to be less need for that
0:17
Speaker 1: the more we can zip it and really be present.
0:21
Speaker 2: Welcome to Beautifully Complex, where we unpack what it really
0:25
Speaker 2: means to parent neurodivergent kids with dignity and clarity. I'm
0:29
Speaker 2: Penny Williams, and I know firsthand how tough and transformative
0:33
Speaker 2: this journey can be. Let's dive in and discover how
0:37
Speaker 2: to raise regulated, resilient, beautifully complex kids together. Oh and
0:42
Speaker 2: if you want more support, join our free community at
0:45
Speaker 2: hub dot beautifully complex dot life. Welcome back, everybody to
0:52
Speaker 2: Beautifully Complex. I am really excited to have my friend
0:56
Speaker 2: Tasha Shore here with me again to you today talk
1:01
Speaker 2: about emotions and the healing power of emotions. Tasha, will
1:05
Speaker 2: you start by letting everybody know who you are and
1:08
Speaker 2: what you do, and then we'll jump into it.
1:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks for having me Penny. Well, I'm Tasha Shore.
1:14
Speaker 1: I appreciate the opportunity to share my thinking with your audience.
1:18
Speaker 1: Yet again, thank you. I run a business called Parenting
1:22
Speaker 1: Boys Peacefully, and I have a mission of creating a
1:25
Speaker 1: more peaceful world, one sweet boy at a time. And
1:28
Speaker 1: essentially I do that by working with parents, mostly of
1:32
Speaker 1: young boys who are struggling with big emotions. Right, Like,
1:35
Speaker 1: what we're going to talk about so hard behavior is
1:38
Speaker 1: aggression or talking back or big tantrums, those types of things.
1:42
Speaker 1: Because I feel like if we can create some peace
1:46
Speaker 1: in our home, that's going to emanate out into our
1:49
Speaker 1: communities and into the wider world, and ultimately that's what's
1:51
Speaker 1: going to change things for the better.
1:54
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah. And I thought a lot over the years
1:57
Speaker 2: about how we really tell boys, boys especially to keep
2:03
Speaker 2: their emotions in don't share your emotions, don't feel your emotions,
2:08
Speaker 2: just stuff them down, right, which is so unhealthy. And
2:12
Speaker 2: now we're talking more about emotions in general in our culture,
2:16
Speaker 2: I think, and it's such a good thing. I think
2:20
Speaker 2: we need to keep pushing right this message that feelings
2:23
Speaker 2: are natural, feelings are acceptable. There are in any good
2:26
Speaker 2: or bad feelings. It's what we do with them, right
2:30
Speaker 2: that dictates. But I think our emotions, they're kind of
2:34
Speaker 2: the foundation of life, Like if we're going to be happy,
2:37
Speaker 2: we need to be dealing with emotion, processing, emotion, coping
2:40
Speaker 2: to emotion, right, all of these things in a healthy way.
2:44
Speaker 2: Do you want to start by talking about really what
2:48
Speaker 2: is the connection between emotions and healing? As you're talking
2:52
Speaker 2: about the healing power of emotions, we often think of
2:56
Speaker 2: emotions as difficult, right, So how do we connect the
3:00
Speaker 2: healing narrative?
3:02
Speaker 1: Yeah? I mean, I think emotions are difficult. They're difficult
3:05
Speaker 1: for us to hear. If we're not the one having them,
3:10
Speaker 1: they're difficult, or like I it's our child who's having them.
3:13
Speaker 1: It's often difficult for us as parents to listen because
3:16
Speaker 1: perhaps we're being witnessed. Maybe we feel embarrassment or shame
3:20
Speaker 1: or guilt. What do we do wrong? But I don't
3:25
Speaker 1: think for the person they're necessarily too challenging. And I
3:31
Speaker 1: think that if we partner together, which I think needs
3:34
Speaker 1: to be the goal for two people to partner together,
3:38
Speaker 1: whether that's two adults or adults and child, right, that
3:41
Speaker 1: we can harness the power of those emotions to heal.
3:46
Speaker 1: I think probably the biggest problem that I see is
3:50
Speaker 1: that we misidentify the big upsets, Right, So the big
3:55
Speaker 1: tantrum or the rage or whatever it is as the problem.
4:00
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying like it's okay to hate her
4:03
Speaker 1: kick or whatever. That's that's not what I'm saying. But
4:07
Speaker 1: that is not the problem. Like, the problem already happened, right,
4:12
Speaker 1: the hurt, the upset set in. We don't necessarily know
4:16
Speaker 1: what that was. Maybe it's been you know, years of
4:19
Speaker 1: being teased in school, Maybe it was a hard berth,
4:22
Speaker 1: Maybe it was you know, trying to process the split
4:26
Speaker 1: up in my parents. You know, who knows what it was.
4:28
Speaker 1: But the problem has already happened, and the feelings that
4:33
Speaker 1: are coming out aren't just not the problem, they are
4:37
Speaker 1: actually the solution to the problems. So what we do
4:41
Speaker 1: is we tend to because we feel embarrassed or because
4:44
Speaker 1: we feel like they are the problem, we try to
4:46
Speaker 1: put a lid on them. Yeah right, We tell our
4:49
Speaker 1: kids or ourselves, you know, to man up, to just
4:54
Speaker 1: deal with it, to calm down. I oftentimes when I'm
4:57
Speaker 1: listening to parents and there's feelings that start to bubble up,
5:00
Speaker 1: they'll start to cry. For example, they'll do this like
5:06
Speaker 1: they're trying to breathe and stop the tears from coming.
5:09
Speaker 1: And then I see my job as how do I
5:12
Speaker 1: encourage them by creating a safe enough space that they
5:14
Speaker 1: can just allow the feelings to flow, because it's actually
5:17
Speaker 1: that somatic release that leads them to the release of
5:22
Speaker 1: the tension and the letting go of that hurt and
5:26
Speaker 1: upset that set in, so that they can once again think,
5:31
Speaker 1: be present and like assess accurately situations that they face
5:37
Speaker 1: day in and day out, rather than running on emotion.
5:40
Speaker 1: So it's like, the emotions aren't the problem. The problem
5:43
Speaker 1: already happened. So if we're not trying to make the
5:45
Speaker 1: emotion stop, then we open up this world of possibility
5:50
Speaker 1: of healing.
5:51
Speaker 2: M recently, I heard somebody say that crying is healing
5:57
Speaker 2: and it really sort of took me back. Had to
6:00
Speaker 2: think about that. But you know, that is the processing
6:03
Speaker 2: of the emotion. That's feeling the feeling. Your body is
6:07
Speaker 2: responding to that feeling. But if you weren't feeling it,
6:11
Speaker 2: then you wouldn't cry, right, you wouldn't have these outward expressions.
6:16
Speaker 2: And we have to feel the feeling to move through
6:19
Speaker 2: it and get to the other side of it. And
6:21
Speaker 2: that really stuck with me.
6:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, like feelings aren't bad. I mean, we can act
6:26
Speaker 1: on them in ways that are not good, but the
6:28
Speaker 1: feelings themselves aren't bad. And I mean, I'm just thinking
6:32
Speaker 1: of the story of myself where I had maybe gosh,
6:35
Speaker 1: it's been several years now, it was twenty eighteen, so
6:39
Speaker 1: quite a while. But I fell into my one and
6:42
Speaker 1: only depression of my lifetime so far, hopefully the only
6:45
Speaker 1: one ever. And I practice a practice of listening partnership
6:52
Speaker 1: that we write about in the book, where parents take
6:55
Speaker 1: turens listening to one another and witnessing one another and
6:58
Speaker 1: holding space for the other person to process their feelings,
7:02
Speaker 1: to try to share, to talk, to laugh, whatever comes up.
7:07
Speaker 1: And at the same time, I was seeing a therapist
7:12
Speaker 1: and talking things out with her a little bit and
7:16
Speaker 1: it was really interesting, and she said, you know, you
7:18
Speaker 1: would be a candidate for antidepressants if you want to
7:20
Speaker 1: do that, and I'm like, nah, I don't really want
7:23
Speaker 1: to do that. I'm going to keep up with my
7:24
Speaker 1: listening partnership and I think I can get through this.
7:27
Speaker 1: And I was really strategic about it, like it took
7:30
Speaker 1: me ten months. And I because I've been using the
7:33
Speaker 1: practice for so long, I have built up a network
7:35
Speaker 1: of people who I support and who support me, and
7:37
Speaker 1: I set up daily exchanges for myself over those ten months,
7:43
Speaker 1: and I also figured out that morning didn't work so
7:47
Speaker 1: well because sometimes afterwards I just felt so spent or
7:51
Speaker 1: maybe even a little bit down and heavy, and I
7:53
Speaker 1: couldn't get my work done. So I figured that, okay,
7:55
Speaker 1: I needed to do my work in the morning and
7:57
Speaker 1: then come to that healing for myself midday early afternoon.
8:01
Speaker 1: So I got really strategic about it. And it felt
8:05
Speaker 1: like I was getting nowhere. Like I was just cry.
8:08
Speaker 1: I would sob, like just sob and sob and sob,
8:12
Speaker 1: day after day after day, and you know, presumably it
8:16
Speaker 1: was about you know, missing my I had just moved
8:18
Speaker 1: across the world, you know, missing my friends, missing my family.
8:21
Speaker 1: But it was sort of it felt like it was
8:22
Speaker 1: getting nowhere. And one day the person who was listening
8:27
Speaker 1: to me, who was my mentor, kind of cracked at
8:32
Speaker 1: some sort of a nut. I don't know, I don't
8:34
Speaker 1: even remember exactly what she said at this point, but
8:36
Speaker 1: it was something like, if you had to take a
8:39
Speaker 1: wild guess at what this was really about, what do
8:44
Speaker 1: you think it would be? And honestly, I'd have to
8:46
Speaker 1: go back and listening to a listen to a podcast
8:49
Speaker 1: that I did with somebody else way back then, where
8:52
Speaker 1: I actually shared the story to remember what it was
8:54
Speaker 1: really about. I remember anymore. That's how gone it is.
8:58
Speaker 1: But once I touched on that again, just this huge
9:02
Speaker 1: sob and then I woke up the next morning like
9:07
Speaker 1: a different person, Like the depression was gone, it had lifted,
9:11
Speaker 1: it was no longer. And I went to my therapist
9:14
Speaker 1: that week and I was like, I'm fine. She's like, well,
9:17
Speaker 1: what do you mean. I'm like, well, I've just been
9:19
Speaker 1: doing this practice of listening partnerships and I every day
9:23
Speaker 1: and I've been sobbing and I've been witnessed and I
9:27
Speaker 1: don't know, yesterday my mentor said this thing to me,
9:29
Speaker 1: and I had this huge release, and I just woke
9:31
Speaker 1: up this morning and I feel like Tasha again, like
9:34
Speaker 1: the Tasha who I used to know and love, who
9:36
Speaker 1: I haven't seen for ten months. I feel fine, and
9:39
Speaker 1: I've been fine ever since. She's kind of like okay,
9:43
Speaker 1: And then I gave her a copy of my book.
9:44
Speaker 1: I'm like here, like read this, like this is what
9:46
Speaker 1: I did, and I love her dearly. She was a
9:50
Speaker 1: little bit taken aback, but the process of being able
9:54
Speaker 1: to not try to not be sad, to not try
9:59
Speaker 1: to stop missing, and just focusing on my life. Is
10:02
Speaker 1: here good? Here is good? I need to make more friends,
10:05
Speaker 1: Let's find a community. I think we try to get
10:08
Speaker 1: pragmatic about FAG. Yeah, And rather than doing that, I
10:11
Speaker 1: just created as much space as I needed to be
10:16
Speaker 1: able to let all of the feeling out. And when
10:19
Speaker 1: I say out, I mean like in a somatic way,
10:23
Speaker 1: like shaking and sweating and sobbing and crying and raging
10:27
Speaker 1: and all the things that I needed to do. And
10:29
Speaker 1: when it was gone, it was just gone.
10:32
Speaker 2: Yeah. What stands out to me about that is that
10:36
Speaker 2: your pain was being witnessed. You were being seen for
10:41
Speaker 2: exactly where you were and what was happening. And also
10:47
Speaker 2: not avoiding the feeling. You know, sometimes we tell people
10:50
Speaker 2: who are feeling down to practice gratitude. Well, that's kind
10:54
Speaker 2: of sidestepping And I hadn't really thought about it that
10:57
Speaker 2: way until you just shared that story. And if we're saying, okay,
11:01
Speaker 2: well you know the sunshining today and I have a
11:04
Speaker 2: roof over my head, we're avoiding the feeling completely, We're
11:09
Speaker 2: not We're not addressing the feeling. We're trying to control
11:12
Speaker 2: it instat and we're trying to put it away.
11:14
Speaker 1: Right absolutely, And I think, you know a lot of
11:16
Speaker 1: people in the parenting space kind of skip over that piece.
11:20
Speaker 1: And that's what I'm really adamant about. In my community.
11:23
Speaker 1: It's like we have to do this work. Like right
11:25
Speaker 1: before this podcast recording, I had a call in my community.
11:29
Speaker 1: It's a weekly call where we actually do this practice
11:31
Speaker 1: of listening partnerships, and we work on our feelings and
11:34
Speaker 1: we hone our practice both being a listener and being
11:36
Speaker 1: listened to, and you know, so much comes out. We're
11:41
Speaker 1: carrying so much, whether it's you know, we're embarrassed because
11:46
Speaker 1: our boys aren't being respectful of their friends' parents when
11:50
Speaker 1: they're at their house, and they won't give up their
11:51
Speaker 1: electronics when they're being asked, or they're online and they're
11:56
Speaker 1: you know, sexting some AI bought or they you know,
12:01
Speaker 1: hit their friend out a playdate, or they called their
12:05
Speaker 1: mom a name that was triggering to the other mom
12:08
Speaker 1: at the playdate, and now the mom won't let the
12:11
Speaker 1: kid play anymore, and the kid doesn't have any other friends,
12:14
Speaker 1: and like everybody's hearts are breaking. I mean, these are
12:18
Speaker 1: a huge huge things that we are dealing with as parents.
12:21
Speaker 1: And if I'm going to just say, like, okay, well
12:24
Speaker 1: your kid is not being respectful to other parents on playdates,
12:28
Speaker 1: well try strategy A, and then if that doesn't work,
12:31
Speaker 1: to try strategy B. And then if that doesn't work,
12:33
Speaker 1: try strategy try the tongue twister, try strategy See it's
12:40
Speaker 1: not gonna work if I am a loaded cannon, right,
12:44
Speaker 1: if I as a parent, I'm feeling ashamed, embarrassed, helpless, hopeless, overwhelmed, exhausted,
12:52
Speaker 1: Like I have to process those feelings or I'm gonna
12:55
Speaker 1: have zero success implementing any of these strategies. So I think,
12:58
Speaker 1: like one thing I want to say to parents out
13:01
Speaker 1: there are listening, it's like, you matter. You can't skip
13:04
Speaker 1: over your own healing. I mean, you don't have to
13:07
Speaker 1: reach Nirvana and like, you know, process everything before you
13:11
Speaker 1: can help your kids. That's not what I'm saying, But
13:13
Speaker 1: there has to be a parallel path. And the thing
13:16
Speaker 1: is also it's like when you start doing that and
13:19
Speaker 1: you start to feel different yourself, you really gain what's
13:23
Speaker 1: the word like appreciation for the power of the release
13:28
Speaker 1: of the feelings, and you have then much more attention
13:32
Speaker 1: and patience to listen to your child when they are upset,
13:36
Speaker 1: and the tendency to skate over it or to quiet
13:40
Speaker 1: it or you know, to distract your child will wane.
13:43
Speaker 1: And that's ultimately what we want to have happened, so
13:46
Speaker 1: that they can do their healing too, because otherwise their
13:49
Speaker 1: behaviors aren't going to change exactly.
13:51
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Parenting work isn't just helping our kids do
13:56
Speaker 2: things or learn things. Parenting work is us working on
14:00
Speaker 2: ourselves too, in a parallel path. It has to be,
14:05
Speaker 2: because we can't show up and offer coregulation and offer
14:10
Speaker 2: stability if we are, you know, swimming in all these
14:15
Speaker 2: emotions we haven't dealt with and we're stressed out and
14:17
Speaker 2: we're at our wits end and we're justsregulated. We can't
14:21
Speaker 2: be helpful from that place, from that state and that energy.
14:25
Speaker 2: We have to make shifts, and those shifts often take
14:29
Speaker 2: a lot of self work.
14:30
Speaker 1: They do, and I think, I just I don't want
14:33
Speaker 1: people to feel overwhelmed. I think there's simple things we
14:35
Speaker 1: can do. Also, it's like you don't have to, oh
14:38
Speaker 1: my god, I have to set up a listening partnership
14:40
Speaker 1: and like set aside this time, and yes that's fabulous,
14:43
Speaker 1: and yes I do want you to do that.
14:45
Speaker 2: But one step at a time, one.
14:47
Speaker 1: Step at a time. Right, But like, is there a
14:49
Speaker 1: song that you can listen to that lets you cry,
14:53
Speaker 1: put it on and just allow yourself to release that tension,
14:57
Speaker 1: or a show you can watch, or a book you
14:59
Speaker 1: can or somebody that you can talk to that will
15:02
Speaker 1: listen to you without interrupting or trying to fix you
15:04
Speaker 1: or give you advice or journaling or whatever. Like, get creative.
15:11
Speaker 1: Get creative. You know, can you go into your room
15:13
Speaker 1: and scream into a pillow, you know, turn the shower
15:16
Speaker 1: on and yell in the shower whatever. Like, think of
15:20
Speaker 1: it as energy. Like if you feel tight, there's energy
15:24
Speaker 1: in there that needs to come out. There's not one
15:26
Speaker 1: way to let it out. Just get really creative with
15:29
Speaker 1: whatever your situation is and just start experimenting. You want
15:34
Speaker 1: a journal, journal that like, as you're writing, if the
15:37
Speaker 1: tears come or if there's laughter there, like, let it
15:39
Speaker 1: come out, Let it come out. It's not weird, it's normal.
15:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's the healing part. I just had a
15:57
Speaker 2: huge epiphany as you were talking. I am a person
16:01
Speaker 2: who craves bearing witness, like I have to watch all
16:05
Speaker 2: the documentaries about all the hard things that people have
16:08
Speaker 2: been through, and my kids think I'm insane, like they
16:11
Speaker 2: don't understand why I feel a need to do that.
16:17
Speaker 2: And I just realized that, like that is getting emotions out,
16:22
Speaker 2: like those hard things make me feel something, they often
16:26
Speaker 2: make me cry, and that bearing witness for other people's
16:32
Speaker 2: struggles can be healing for us, Like this whole thing
16:37
Speaker 2: just popped into my head as you were talking and
16:40
Speaker 2: some aha bulbs.
16:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the very witness to others, I think
16:45
Speaker 1: is a part that we don't think about. Like when
16:46
Speaker 1: I teach parents listening partnerships, I think most parents go
16:50
Speaker 1: in thinking, all right, like I'm kind of tightly wound,
16:53
Speaker 1: or I'm struggling to stop yelling at my kid, like
16:55
Speaker 1: I need to deal with my stuff. So I'm learning
16:58
Speaker 1: this practice for my own healing, and I think oftentimes
17:01
Speaker 1: they're quite surprised that they learn a ton. They feel
17:07
Speaker 1: a lot better as they witness others. So in a group,
17:11
Speaker 1: it often is like a breaking of the isolation. So
17:16
Speaker 1: you hear everybody's stories, you don't judge, nobody's judging. You
17:21
Speaker 1: experience what it's like to be in a completely non
17:24
Speaker 1: judgmental environment, and you also realize, Okay, my kid's not
17:28
Speaker 1: the older one doing X, Y or Z, and I'm
17:30
Speaker 1: not the only one losing it, and it just makes
17:33
Speaker 1: them feel normal. And when we feel normal, it's easier
17:36
Speaker 1: for us to kind of switch our behaviors. But then,
17:39
Speaker 1: one on one, as you are in a listening partnership,
17:44
Speaker 1: even and especially when we're feeling like we're in a
17:47
Speaker 1: hard place and we're coming to it for our own healing,
17:51
Speaker 1: being able to listen somebody to somebody else and offer
17:54
Speaker 1: something that's helpful to somebody else is an amazing confidence
18:00
Speaker 1: booster to the person who is listening. So it just
18:04
Speaker 1: comes as a surprise you go and thinking, okay, like
18:06
Speaker 1: I'm in this for me in the sense that I
18:08
Speaker 1: need to help, and then the fact that you have
18:11
Speaker 1: the ability and you get to support others ends up
18:15
Speaker 1: giving you strength in a way that you didn't even imagine.
18:19
Speaker 2: It's regulating to do kind things for other people, like
18:22
Speaker 2: to show up for someone else helps to regulate our
18:25
Speaker 2: nervous system.
18:26
Speaker 1: And we often feel like we're failing as parents right
18:29
Speaker 1: and where our kids are struggling and I'm working with
18:31
Speaker 1: parents whose kids are struggling, right, Yeah, we're so hard
18:35
Speaker 1: on ourselves, so to know that we have a role
18:39
Speaker 1: that's quite helpful to somebody else. We're succeeding out something.
18:45
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, when you feel like a failure, it sort
18:48
Speaker 2: of overtakes you. You think about it in all aspects.
18:52
Speaker 2: And so any way that you can show up and
18:55
Speaker 2: feel like you're doing something good, it's going to be
18:58
Speaker 2: transformative short term. Yeah. Yeah, So how do we encourage
19:03
Speaker 2: our kids to be more open with their emotions, to
19:07
Speaker 2: communicate them, to let them out.
19:11
Speaker 1: We stop talking. I mean that is like the main answer.
19:15
Speaker 1: That is the main answer. Pretty much every one of
19:18
Speaker 1: us talks too much, Yeah, every one of us. And
19:22
Speaker 1: so if you the next time your child is struggling
19:26
Speaker 1: with something, whether or not you feel upset, if you
19:29
Speaker 1: might feel empathy, you might feel upset, you might feel
19:31
Speaker 1: like you want to help, like you could feel all
19:33
Speaker 1: kinds of things. I want to challenge you to not
19:36
Speaker 1: actually say anything, but really listen, listen, to just understand,
19:43
Speaker 1: to take in what's going on for them, not in
19:47
Speaker 1: that mode of trying to figure out Okay, I'm listening,
19:49
Speaker 1: but I'm trying to figure out, like what I can say,
19:51
Speaker 1: or how I can help, or how I can make
19:52
Speaker 1: them feel better, or how I can solve the problem
19:55
Speaker 1: or what I need to do as a responsible parent
19:58
Speaker 1: in X, Y or Z situation, None of that. Just
20:02
Speaker 1: be present. Amazing things will happen when our kids understand
20:08
Speaker 1: that we can hold that space for them, they will
20:11
Speaker 1: share more, even the kids who have shut down. But
20:15
Speaker 1: the second they feel that we're judging them or we're
20:19
Speaker 1: trying to solve a problem for them, even they'll shut
20:22
Speaker 1: down again. So it's not complicated, but it can be
20:27
Speaker 1: challenging for many of us because we live in a
20:29
Speaker 1: world where talking is like the way, right, like we
20:32
Speaker 1: are expected to help people by offering solutions. We're in
20:38
Speaker 1: a self help world. Read this book, listen to this podcast,
20:41
Speaker 1: right like do this, do that, do this, do that?
20:45
Speaker 1: But being, we forgot what being is, and really what
20:49
Speaker 1: our kids need is for us to simply be present
20:52
Speaker 1: with them and accept them in that moment exactly as
20:57
Speaker 1: they are for who they are. There's plenty of time
21:00
Speaker 1: for guiding and helping and all of that, but there's
21:02
Speaker 1: actually going to be need less need for that the
21:05
Speaker 1: more we can zip it and really be present and
21:08
Speaker 1: listen because like with us, the more they're able to share,
21:12
Speaker 1: whether they're talking to us or they're crying or whatever
21:15
Speaker 1: they're doing, they are going to build their own intelligence.
21:20
Speaker 1: They are going to get smarter. They are going to
21:23
Speaker 1: have aha moments right like you've been having, and they
21:26
Speaker 1: will likely come up with solutions themselves, more be able
21:30
Speaker 1: to get to a place where they can ask us
21:32
Speaker 1: a specific question rather than just having the big upset.
21:36
Speaker 1: So that is the number one thing. If that's all
21:39
Speaker 1: anybody does, that would be a huge gift to our children.
21:42
Speaker 2: Yes, and to ourselves, I have to say, because we
21:46
Speaker 2: will see changes come from that.
21:48
Speaker 1: Right. And also it's a break, right. I think so
21:51
Speaker 1: many of us are like, what am I supposed to do?
21:53
Speaker 1: What am I supposed to do? Right? Parents come to me,
21:55
Speaker 1: they come to you like, I don't know what to
21:56
Speaker 1: do with this kid. I don't have to do in
21:57
Speaker 1: this situation to help help help. But of less is more. Yeah,
22:01
Speaker 1: if you stop and just listen, what needs to be
22:05
Speaker 1: done will likely become clear.
22:07
Speaker 2: Yeah.
22:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no, it's not an emergency. It doesn't have
22:10
Speaker 1: to happen right this second.
22:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, And sometimes listening is listening to the silence. I
22:15
Speaker 2: think that's where we make the mistake of talking too
22:18
Speaker 2: much so often, is if nobody's saying anything, then we
22:20
Speaker 2: feel like we have to fill that void, and we don't.
22:24
Speaker 2: If we actually just give them space to process, to
22:27
Speaker 2: figure out what they might want to say or do
22:30
Speaker 2: or whatever, just give them that space, hold that space.
22:34
Speaker 2: It can be so transformative and in their own time too.
22:39
Speaker 2: You know, one thing that my own kid taught me
22:41
Speaker 2: as a teenager was I don't want to talk about
22:45
Speaker 2: it in your time, and my time was always right now,
22:48
Speaker 2: let's deal with it and get past it. But I
22:51
Speaker 2: am okay to talk about it at some point and
22:53
Speaker 2: I'll let you know when that is, which was really
22:56
Speaker 2: hard for me. It was very hard for me to
22:58
Speaker 2: not try to solve the problem right, not try to
23:00
Speaker 2: make him feel better to get through it. It wasn't
23:03
Speaker 2: that I was trying to put away the feelings, but
23:05
Speaker 2: I wanted to help him with them right. And I thought,
23:08
Speaker 2: if we don't talk about it now, we're never going
23:10
Speaker 2: to talk about it. And that absolutely was not true,
23:13
Speaker 2: Like every single time over the last i don't know,
23:16
Speaker 2: six years, seven years since since I embraced what he
23:20
Speaker 2: was telling me. He needed. He comes at some point
23:23
Speaker 2: and talks to me at some point in his own time.
23:27
Speaker 2: So it's not that he doesn't want my help, which
23:30
Speaker 2: I think is a way that we interpret that or
23:33
Speaker 2: misinterpret that. It's just that he needed it differently, and
23:38
Speaker 2: I needed to be open to that. I needed to
23:40
Speaker 2: leave the space of time sometimes for that.
23:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that. I think that our kids always
23:47
Speaker 1: need us in some way, you know, regardless of their
23:50
Speaker 1: age mm hm. But we often want to do things
23:54
Speaker 1: our way, right, we want them to share in the
23:56
Speaker 1: way that we share or whatever. And I again, we
24:00
Speaker 1: need to think of ourselves as responsive, to be present
24:03
Speaker 1: when they're younger. That looks one way. If we're listening
24:06
Speaker 1: to a little kid, you know, a five year old
24:08
Speaker 1: have a tantrum about something, that looks very different than
24:11
Speaker 1: listening to you know, a sixteen year old share about
24:16
Speaker 1: you know, pornography or sex stuff or tech stuff or
24:20
Speaker 1: school stuff. I mean, that looks very different. When we
24:23
Speaker 1: get into the teenage years, there's a lot I talk
24:25
Speaker 1: about just being present, and so I love what you're doing.
24:29
Speaker 1: It's like, basically, I'm here if and when you want
24:33
Speaker 1: to talk, I will make myself available as opposed to
24:37
Speaker 1: we need to talk about this, like you can't like
24:39
Speaker 1: hold this in that's like our desperation and our needs.
24:44
Speaker 1: They won't respond to that, they will distance themselves.
24:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
24:48
Speaker 1: So I love that you figured that out because I mean,
24:50
Speaker 1: I'm sure that completely transformed your relationship totally.
24:53
Speaker 2: It took years for me to hear him on that,
24:56
Speaker 2: Like it was so hard for me, and then I
24:58
Speaker 2: finally just had to have faith that if I followed
25:02
Speaker 2: his lean, things would work out. And then lo and behold.
25:06
Speaker 2: You know, he shares with me way more than he
25:09
Speaker 2: would have had I forced him right, way more.
25:13
Speaker 1: And you can't force him.
25:15
Speaker 2: No, no, they're gonna shut down.
25:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I have one of my three is
25:21
Speaker 1: a teenager who he's more reserved and even like his
25:25
Speaker 1: brothers or dad will be like, you know, he doesn't
25:30
Speaker 1: talk to me, or he doesn't you know, I don't
25:32
Speaker 1: know what's going on with him, And I'm like, well,
25:35
Speaker 1: I totally know what's going on with him, and he
25:37
Speaker 1: completely talks to me, like y'all need to just shut
25:40
Speaker 1: up for a minute. Yeah, I just let him like yeah,
25:43
Speaker 1: like he's not a kid who's going to or a
25:45
Speaker 1: young man who's going to fight for airtime. But he
25:50
Speaker 1: knows that if he needs me, I'm here. I'm not like,
25:55
Speaker 1: you know, texting him and calling him and being like,
25:57
Speaker 1: you know, hey, what's up? What's going on? I was this?
26:00
Speaker 1: Did you solve this problem? I just say like, hey,
26:04
Speaker 1: if you want me, I'm here. Or I say hey,
26:08
Speaker 1: do you want me to reach out to you regularly?
26:10
Speaker 1: If so, like what's regularly for you? Like what would
26:13
Speaker 1: you like for me? And then he just shows up
26:17
Speaker 1: of his own own free will. I feel like I
26:20
Speaker 1: very close. I know everything that I would want to
26:23
Speaker 1: know about what's going on with him.
26:25
Speaker 2: It's amazing.
26:26
Speaker 1: But that only happens because I get really quiet, and
26:29
Speaker 1: sometimes that looks like him calling me and me coming
26:36
Speaker 1: for in the same house in that moment, and me
26:38
Speaker 1: like going into his room and sitting there, and I
26:40
Speaker 1: might sit there for ten or fifteen minutes and he
26:43
Speaker 1: might not say anything. Yeah, And that can feel, like
26:47
Speaker 1: you said, listening to the silence can feel uncomfortable. I'm
26:50
Speaker 1: not uncomfortable with it anymore because I recognize that he
26:54
Speaker 1: wants me there and my presence is plenty, and that
26:57
Speaker 1: when he's ready, he'll share what he wants to share,
27:00
Speaker 1: and inevitably that is what happens. And oftentimes at the
27:03
Speaker 1: end it looks like silence again, and I say, you know,
27:07
Speaker 1: are you wanting me to stay here? So I'm happy
27:10
Speaker 1: to stay here, would you like me to stay here?
27:12
Speaker 1: Or ill often say like or are you done with me?
27:14
Speaker 1: You know? And I'm done with you? You can go yeah, okay,
27:19
Speaker 1: and then I go and like, there you have it.
27:22
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. My kid even comes to me when I
27:25
Speaker 2: don't know anything's wrong now, and he says, can we talk?
27:29
Speaker 2: And he wants, you know, you to turn off whatever
27:31
Speaker 2: you're doing and like look at him, even though like
27:34
Speaker 2: eye contact is not his thing, but he wants to know,
27:38
Speaker 2: like do I have your full attention because what I'm
27:40
Speaker 2: about to tell you is important? Or you know, what
27:44
Speaker 2: I need you for is really important. I love that
27:46
Speaker 2: And that's everything. It's yeah, like instead of stewing and exploding, right,
27:52
Speaker 2: he's seeking at least a regulated presence or somebody who
27:57
Speaker 2: just will listen and say, I see you, I get it.
28:00
Speaker 1: Right, And he's he's like a man now asking for help.
28:04
Speaker 1: And that's coming back to my mission, right, that's how
28:07
Speaker 1: we create a more peaceful world. One sweet boy at
28:09
Speaker 1: a ton. It is so important that we teach our
28:13
Speaker 1: boys to ask for help. Yes, and that doesn't mean
28:16
Speaker 1: going like, hey, I need you to ask for help,
28:18
Speaker 1: like when you need it. It looks like these examples
28:21
Speaker 1: that we've been talking about. It looks all kinds of
28:23
Speaker 1: different ways, depending on your child and depending on their
28:25
Speaker 1: age and all of the things. But how beautiful that
28:28
Speaker 1: now you have this emotionally intelligent man who understands that
28:34
Speaker 1: when he's struggling, it's a great idea to reach out
28:38
Speaker 1: and he knows that there's somebody there that he can
28:41
Speaker 1: reach out to. Like that would be my wish for
28:43
Speaker 1: every young boy as he grows into a man.
28:46
Speaker 2: Totally. Yeah, seeking connection, right, it's seeking connection in those times,
28:52
Speaker 2: not necessarily seeking help or advice or guidance, but just
28:56
Speaker 2: connection has a lot of power.
28:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, And not feeling shame in needing or wanting that
29:02
Speaker 1: connection or help if they need it, and not feeling
29:06
Speaker 1: like they need to figure it out on their own,
29:08
Speaker 1: because that's when we get into trouble.
29:10
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. We could talk about this for a very
29:13
Speaker 2: long time, but we're already out of time. This is
29:18
Speaker 2: our bite size lesson in the healing power of emotions.
29:23
Speaker 2: But I want you, Tasha, to tell everybody where can
29:26
Speaker 2: they connect with you online? Where they can get your
29:28
Speaker 2: book all of these things.
29:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I well, I don't know when this is
29:33
Speaker 1: gonna go live, but I have a website parentingboyspeacefully dot
29:37
Speaker 1: com and so if you want to go there, I
29:40
Speaker 1: have a ten day reconnect that's just a great way
29:44
Speaker 1: for you to either start connecting or deepen your connection
29:49
Speaker 1: with your sweet boy. So that would be a great
29:51
Speaker 1: place to get started. Yeah, and the book you can
29:55
Speaker 1: just find wherever books are sold.
29:59
Speaker 2: Pretty standard, right, Yeah, I'll link it up for everybody
30:02
Speaker 2: in the show notes at PARENTINGADHD and auntism dot com
30:06
Speaker 2: slash three two to two for episode three hundred and
30:09
Speaker 2: twenty two. Oh, Tash, I always feel a little bit
30:13
Speaker 2: later talking to you, and a lot more hopeful for
30:18
Speaker 2: our boys and just for all of humanity, honestly, And
30:23
Speaker 2: I appreciate that, and I appreciate the work that you're
30:26
Speaker 2: doing for our boys so that they can feel and
30:29
Speaker 2: not be shamed, and you know, that's where they're going
30:32
Speaker 2: to have a fulfilling life. And so I just appreciate
30:34
Speaker 2: you so much.
30:35
Speaker 1: Thank you that means a lot to me. I do.
30:37
Speaker 1: I think of myself as kind of an injector of hope.
30:40
Speaker 1: So when I know that it's working, that makes me
30:43
Speaker 1: feel really good, because I do feel like the situation
30:45
Speaker 1: is hopeful and it's a hard time right now, but
30:48
Speaker 1: there's so much we can do as parents of young boys,
30:50
Speaker 1: or as parents of anybody to help life go better
30:54
Speaker 1: for them, for our family, and for the bigger world
30:56
Speaker 1: out there.
30:58
Speaker 2: Love it. I will see everybody in time. Take good care.
31:03
Speaker 2: I see you. You're doing hard and meaningful work, and
31:07
Speaker 2: you don't have to do it alone. If you found
31:10
Speaker 2: this episode helpful, share it with someone who needs it
31:13
Speaker 2: and leave a quick review so others can find this
31:16
Speaker 2: support too. When you're ready for next steps, the Regulated
31:20
Speaker 2: Kids Project is here with the tools, coaching, and community
31:24
Speaker 2: to help you raise a more regulated, resilient child. Get
31:28
Speaker 2: more info at regulated kids dot com.