Latest / The Birth Lounge Podcast / Ep. 465: Parenting A Spicy One with Mary Van Geffen

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Ep. 465: Parenting A Spicy One with Mary Van Geffen · The Birth Lounge Podcast

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there's like 20% of children who are so fierce and have such a vision for how things are gonna go, they have more loyalty to their own soul than to what the adult expectation is, and when that happens, it can feel like, like you are just a failure as a parent.
And so there's, you know, defining it as somebody who needs more than I've got.
There's defining it as a child who just has a vision for their life out the womb that doesn't jive with what yours is, Hello, and welcome back to another episode of The Birth Lounge Podcast.
have you gotten your hands on my free download of my non-toxic baby registry list? It's all of the things that I put on my personal baby registry, and I spent hours, like 60-plus hours, exploring, researching, deep diving, rabbit holing into every single thing that went on this baby list.
I was really intentional about everything that I put on.
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However, I didn't really want my house to be filled with just a bunch of stuff, so I was very intentional about the things that I put on there, and if there were tools and gear and things that could have a multipurpose in our home, then I went with that.
Number two, and probably even more important, is I was incredibly diligent about the toxic load of each product, and that's why it took me so long.
That's why I spent 60-plus hours exploring every single product.
And when I say every single product, it wasn't just the products that are on there.
It was so many brands of that same product.
So I'm talking car seats, strollers, bottles, bottle washers, swaddles, sheets, baby washcloths, baby baths, all the things that you need or that make life easier when you have a baby.
But I didn't want a lot of forever chemicals and microplastics.
And if you don't know anything about silicone, the US standard of silicone doesn't even meet the silicone requirements for pig troughs in Europe.
Yeah, you heard me right.
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So I just wanted to make sure that not only was I investing in quality products, I was only getting the gear and the tools that I truly needed, but also I was reducing my family's toxic load at the same time because our little ones are so sensitive, and their little bodies are just learning to be on the outside.
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So head to thebirthlounge.com
and you can find my baby registry at thebirthlounge.com/registry.
So you're just gonna type in thebirthlounge.com/registry,
and you will be able to download my full list of everything that I registered for, and I put little blurbs about why I chose that product and what made me go with that exact brand because it was low tox and a good investment Let me ask you something.
Are you in therapy? Uh, and this is not the beginning of the ad.
This is the beginning of the episode because if you're not in therapy, today is gonna feel like a full-on therapeutic session for your inner child.
Or it did for me.
I get a little teary-eyed in this episode, and in real time, you can hear my inner little girl be healed kinda step by step.
I'm so excited for this conversation.
We're talking about strong-willed children.
Now, my mother has always described me as a strong-willed child.
She will tell stories of the tantrums I would throw or, you know, me being a headache or the hardships that I put her through, and it used to weigh really heavy on me and I used to have a lot of shame and guilt around this because of, I think, the way that those stories made me feel.
It made me feel as if I was a bad child.
Well, fast-forward to me graduating with my undergrad in psychology and I realized that parents just need a lot of, of help and there's not a lot of support out there.
There's not a lot of resources.
And then I got my master's degree and I had even a deeper look into family systems, family dynamics, the way that humans interact with one another and human development from, you know, literally the embryonic stage all the way until the end of life.
And throughout my master's degree, I studied lifespan but also human interaction in each of those stages and it really clued me in to I wasn't a bad child.
I think my parents didn't have the tools and the resources to be able to appropriately support me and connect with me, and it was really healing for me to learn that about myself.
And now, I know you find this hard to believe, but I am a strong-willed adult.
I don't like the word no.
I can't stand to be told, "Well, this is just the way we do it."
And if you even utter the words because I said so in my vicinity, you're gonna see lava come out of every orifice of my body.
It literally irks me to, oh my God, my core.
I just cannot take it.
I can't take being told, "Well, you have to do this."
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I don't have to do anything.
If you want me to do something You need to be sharing with me why you would like me to do this.
We should be talking about the pros and the cons.
We should be talking about the alternatives that I have.
I'm going to have questions on whether this is actually a good fit for me.
Just because something is a quote unquote rule or, you know, something like a societal norm, you can expect that I'm certainly not going to blindly follow it.
It's just who I am.
It's just part of my DNA.
It's just part of my makeup.
I got to be honest.
And so when I was in the early childhood sector, when I was a teacher in early childhood, there used to be these discussions at the end of every school year and we would be placing children in their classrooms for next year, right? So you're looking at the children who are coming into your age group and we're divvying up those children to the appropriate teachers.
And without fail in those meetings, I was always the one volunteering to take these strong-willed children, the children that nobody else wanted, the children that people would say, please don't put those into my classroom.
Oh my God, I just don't know if I can handle that child.
I would raise my hand and be like, I'll take them.
I'd love to have them in my classroom.
I would love to have a classroom that had strong-willed children in it.
And I think it's because I could see myself in those children and I was able to connect with them on a deep level.
And more than that, I was able to connect with them in a way that helps them grow.
And the growth that they would make between the time that they entered my classroom to the end of the school year always blew people away.
My director, other teachers, their parents, me, my co-teachers, everybody was just blown away by the growth that these children had in my classroom.
And up until recently, I just thought, well, it's a knack that I have.
And in the last few years through therapy of my own and continuing my own education around child development and human development and human interaction, which I'm a forever student.
I'm always learning.
I do obviously already have a master's and have for 10 years now.
And I still am always learning.
I've always got a book going.
I'm always listening to podcasts.
I am deep into the research.
Instead of binging Netflix, I binge the NIH website.
I binge Google Scholar.
I binge, you know, the research articles that are not quite published yet, but the clinical trials are going on.
I want to know what is being done in these clinical trials.
And then I'm putting reminders on my calendar to check back when they are supposed to be published.
I mean, I'm really a geek, you guys.
I really am.
And so when it comes to interacting and more specifically parenting a strong-willed child, this can feel really hard.
It can feel isolating.
It can feel like you are a failure.
It can feel as if you're trying every single thing.
You're pulling out every single tool in your toolbox until you're looking at the bottom of your toolbox and you realize, I have no more tools and you're still not getting it right.
That's really hard.
And if that's you, if you're listening, nodding your head, being like, oh my God, HeHe sees me.
I finally have found somebody that knows what I'm going through.
Then honestly, hold on to your britches because today's episode is going to make you feel so seen.
I'd probably grab a couple tissues because you might shed a tear or two.
I know I did.
I literally cried throughout this whole episode because I felt so seen and validated by the things that were said.
I'm so excited to have on Mary Van Geffen, who is an international parenting coach specifically for moms of spicy children, and she was a spicy one herself.
She wrote the book on thriving when your child's needs feel overwhelming, and she called it Parenting a Spicy One: A Compassionate Guide for Raising a Wonderfully Strong-Willed and Deep-Feeling Kid.
I mean, does that title right there not make you just feel like a warm hug, especially if you're in the trenches and feeling so alone in your parenting journey? Mary combines her training as a simplicity parenting counselor and a professional co-active coach with hard-earned personal experience raising her own spirited daughter and mild-child son.
She has transformed the lives of over 8,000 mothers with her online support group, Moms of Spicy Ones Academy.
She has also garnered over 400,000 followers on Instagram made up of other parents of spicy children.
In today's episode, we're gonna talk about things like how does your nervous system and your child's temperament play into their personality? How do you know if you have a spicy child? Once you have determined you have a spicy child, now what kind of differences and changes and accommodations and different approaches should you be taking in order to support your child, to connect with them, to make not only their life easier, but your life easier? Something that continues to come up in my most recent episodes too is repair, and we're gonna dive into this because as someone who didn't grow up in a home that repaired after conflict, I'm so fascinated by the way that it is such a topic, it is such a highlight, it is such a spotlight right now for all of us who are just entering this journey of parenting Finally, we're gonna talk about the difference between respectful parenting and being a permissive parent, and also how can you handle those explosive tantrums.
You guys, Mary has a way of just making you feel so loved and seen and warm and fuzzy on the inside.
I cannot wait to share her wisdom with you.
So without further ado, Mary, welcome to the show Thank you.
Good to be here.
Oh my God, you have no idea how excited I am for this conversation.
I just shared with our audience why I wanted to have you on the show, and I've been following you online for quite a while now.
And I have to be honest, the reason I was so drawn to you is because we share philosophies when it comes to, quote unquote, "strong-willed children."
Oh my gosh, okay, I feel like I'm gonna cry already.
So I don't know why.
I'm gonna, I'm probably gonna cry in this episode, you guys.
I feel like strong-willed children get such a bad rep, and I feel like people are either demonizing of them or they are very fearful of them, and I don't share in that philosophy at all.
I love them so much because I think I can connect with them.
I am such a strong-willed adult, and I think that because I have felt so misunderstood in so many situations, in so many ways, that I can really connect with these strong-willed children.
And I'm like, "You're not being bad.
You're not trying to press my buttons.
You have a certain way of communicating, and, and you just have so much love and compassion and passion, and there's, like, this fire inside of you.
How can I connect with you to channel that in a way that other people around you can just love on you the way that I love you?" Um, and so I'm super excited for this conversation, and I know that so many people in the audience are wanting this because they asked for it.
They asked for parenting support for children that are just-- I mean, they push their buttons.
They frustrate them.
They are strong-willed.
They are tantruming.
They just-- These parents are at a loss.
And so when I found you, I watched you for a little bit, kind of stalked you on the internet a little bit, and I was like, "All right, she's the one.
I've gotta have her on because of your philosophy when it comes to parenting a strong-willed child."
So let's start there.
Let's first define a strong-willed child so that everyone in the audience can either dial in and say, "Yes, this is me, my child, my family," or they can say, "Hmm, I don't know that this is my child, but let me keep listening to see if I might be able to pick up something good from this episode."
Yeah, let me keep listening so I can handle the difficult people in my life who might be strong-willed Oh.
I call it, I call them spicy ones because I think that covers a multitude.
But in, when people are googling, like, to get support, they are typing in words like defiance and willful and violent, intense, um, and then meltdowns, whining, tantrum.
Everything is a power struggle with this kid, and so understandably, if you have a kid like that, and guess what, all two-year-olds are kinda like that.
Not really.
There are some mild child two-year-olds, but when a child is coming into their own developmentally, they can feel like a spicy one, and I define a spicy one in a couple ways.
One way is this child needs more than I as a parent have to give, and so it's that feeling of failure and not enough-ness that wakes up in a parent when you were sold this story that I say, "It's time to go," and the child says, "Yes, Mommy, I can't wait."
And there are kids like that.
I had a spicy one and a mild child.
But there's like 20% of children who are so fierce and have such a vision for how things are gonna go, they have more loyalty to their own soul than to what the adult expectation is, and when that happens, it can feel like, like you are just a failure as a parent.
And so there's, you know, defining it as somebody who needs more than I've got.
There's defining it as a child who just has a vision for their life out the womb that doesn't jive with what yours is, and then there's a lot of the temperamental and physiological stuff, like some of us have a baby that is kicking our cervix repeatedly and then is born and will not be calmed, and that 5:00 hour, we're pulling our hair out because we've done all the shushing and the swaddling, and this kid is maybe having some discomfort in their body or maybe just needs to scream, almost like, like one of those wind-up toys that it just have to get all the way through the wind-up before they're done.
And so it's also very isolating to have a spicy one because the majority of people are like, "Oh, I just tell them to stop, and they stop."
Not all kids are like that.
And so I say spicy ones are, um, high, in terms of their temperament, they're highly intense, they're low in their adaptability, they're deeply persistent, and they're highly perceptive, so they notice everything, which means they also notice your mood.
There would be times with my spicy one where I would wake up from a bad night of sleep and I'd be feeling grumpy before my feet touched the floor, and then there she was in the doorway angry at me and pissed at me, and it was like, it was like my feelings were contagious, and I often didn't know, is it her or is it me? Like, who's causing this combustion? It was very confusing.
But these kids, these intense baby CEOs, turn out to be the world changers.
They turn out to have podcasts with a quarter of a million subscribers.
They turn out to write books that change people's lives.
They are the entrepreneurs.
They are the activists.
Like, they are the people we need to make this world, um, filled with justice because they're into justice.
They're power seekers.
And so it's like they're very hard to parent because they're going to be such a big impact on this earth.
And I see you still feeling emotional.
Mm-hmm.
I wanna know what's going on for you.
Yeah.
I think you're just hitting on triggers of like, you know, it's just...
So my mom always said that I was a strong child, that I was very hard to parent.
Not that I was bad, right? Not that I was defiant.
I was a rule follower, but that I was strong-willed, that I, I just, I was not flexible in terms of like when I wanted to wear this outfit, I was wearing this outfit, and she's like, "You can't wear your shiny shoes to play in the mud."
And I was like, "But I am," you know? And I still am like that as an adult.
And I think that for some of us '90s babies who grew up with parents who wanted the best, for sure, but parenting was not a topic that you talked about a lot, and it wasn't something that was very community-driven.
Like, if you were struggling within your home, you did not take that outside of the walls of your home.
You just struggled silently.
You didn't talk about it online.
There were not books, you know? The Dobsons were really your only kind of resource in that time, and that did not float everyone's boat.
And I think that so many of us have these internal children, these inner child, these voices in us that are just longing to be seen because when we were children, we really weren't seen.
And I don't know that it's anyone's fault.
I'm not saying that our parents- Mm-hmm did it on purpose.
I just think that they didn't have the resources.
And so hearing you say like, "These are the entrepreneurs.
These are the people that are changing lives.
These are the people that aren't gonna lay down and let these systems in the US just take advantage of all of us.
We are gonna be the ones that are using our voice," it just makes me feel so seen, and I think that- Mm-hmm is what makes me emotional because as a child, you know, you're always told Sit down, be quiet, be respectful, be a lady.
Don't, don't make a ruckus.
Don't say anything that's disruptive.
Don't call attention to yourself.
And that is something that I really had to unlearn as an adult, was like, but when you see an injustice, you should say something about it.
And, and the way that you say it matters.
The way that you present yourself matters.
Don't be aggressive about it.
You don't have to be you know, disruptive in a way that is harmful, but to raise your hand and say, "Now, wait a minute, I don't think this is actually fair to everybody that's in this room."
Or like, "Wait a minute, maybe we actually should be talking about race in maternity care because our Black and brown women are dying at four times the rate of white women," right? For some women, that is super uncomfortable to say.
For me, I'm like, how could I leave this conversation and not say that? I mean, you can just hear my passion even- Mm-hmm in this conversation, and I think, again, that's why I feel so emotional is like you just in this one little 15-minute segment of the show, you have made me feel so seen in a, in a way that as a child I think I was longing to be seen, and the adults in my life weren't able to meet me there.
Yeah.
I'm just...
I'm sending so much love to your inner child- Yeah and to the little people listening, like the little parts of you that are listening to this and going, "Yeah, that was me."
Mm.
Because it's the boat rockers, the black sheep, the squeaky wheels that get smacked down the most- Yeah and get, and feel like they've done something wrong.
And special shout-out to eldest daughters- Oh and youngest daughters, because there's something about a daughter being a spicy one that is more repulsive to parents.
And I, I wanna say that it's, uh, it's subconscious, but I think moms want their daughters to be safe, and the more outspoken and countercultural and out there their daughter is, the more there's this sense of, "Oh, that's not safe."
When my daughter...
When a woman is seen as big, too big for her britches, she is in the line of fire for violence.
Mm.
And so there's a part of mothers that wants to keep daughters small, and it's it might look like competition, but I think often it is a subconscious drive to protect their young.
Wow.
Oh, my gosh.
Okay, that really hits home for sure.
Talk a little bit more about the differences in the genders of, of raising a boy and a girl.
Well, and I'm always like so, I get nervous when I wade into this territory 'cause I don't want to get into, Anything that would make someone feel like I am assigning, if you're a boy you have to act this way, or you're a girl, or even that you have to be your assigned sex at birth.
I don't give a crap- Totally what your gender expression is.
Go for it, right? And there's some generalizations that just play out over and over again, and w- girls with ADHD or autism are systematically diagnosed almost 10 years after boys.
Because boys, first off, all the research, first off, all the research is done on boys, right? So there's a lot of behaviors that like physicality, knocking things over, having...
There's a lot of things that boys tend to do that they, "Oh, okay, that kid needs support."
Whereas girls, like, they tend to, they often have inattentive ADHD.
And side note, spicy ones don't have to be neurodivergent.
There's a lot of people who outgrow this behavior, but I would say 50% of the, the people that would say they have a spicy one, there's probably a diagnosis in the wings coming, right? So anyway there's this expression that boys, it's very external.
I can see this behavior and it's gotta stop.
Whereas I think the girls' spiciness can be more internal and having those deep feelings.
But then our society tries to stop boys from having deep feelings.
They have them too, and get it flogged out of them, um, with, by being shamed, right? So it's that- There's a lot of ways of being that a girl can't be or a boy can't be just for society, and the spicy one don't give a crap about what society wants.
And so we want to pass on our cultural norms and our values, and the spicy one's like, "Why? Why would we do that? That doesn't make sense."
And there's a real resistance to because I said so.
In fact, you got to drop that from your vernacular.
It becomes a lot more of a collaborative parenting approach, which can appear permissive, but it is not permissive.
The mental gymnastics that a mom of a spicy one is going through to decide, "Okay, is this a boundary I've got to hold because it's in everybody's best interest, or would it be best for everyone if I let this one slide, if I was flexible here because I'm not gonna be flexible there?" It's like a whole beautiful mind situation, and yet it can look from the outside like, oh, wow, you really, uh, you don't know how to say no, do you? It's like you don't understand that the no won't suffice.
It'll have to be this kid needs a lot of preparation, preparing for a boundary, preparing for a scenario, talking through like, "So when we go to grandma's, do you remember what you love to play there?" "Yes, the breakables."
"Yeah, we're not gonna play with the breakables.
What can we do instead?" Like, talking through, getting a vision in this kid's mind of what the yes is because we are so versed in the no.
Like, don't do that.
That is not okay.
It doesn't work on a spicy one.
You need to talk about what is okay, what is the skill you're building, what is the vision you want, and you have to get that in their brains.
Sorry, went off on a tangent.
No.
My God, don't apologize.
I'm just sitting here, like, trying not to break my neck.
I'm, I'm nodding so hard and so much.
Like, this is just, a- again, so healing and also so in alignment with everything that I know about myself and the way that I want to parent and the way that I used to show up in the classroom as an early childhood educator with those children that, like I say, all the other teachers were like no, no, no, please don't put them in my class."
I would be like, "I will take them.
I would love to have them."
You know? And at one point, I had a year where my director came to me and he said he "I'm a little worried about your class."
And I said, "Oh, my gosh.
Why?" And he said, "Well, you've got this child, this child, this child, this child, this child, this child.
That is seven, and you only have 12 children in your class.
You have more children that are strong-willed- Then you don't Or need extra grace or- And I was like, "Cool, I love that.
I mean, we're about to have a rocking school year."
And we did.
I mean, it was awesome.
I loved it so much.
I, of course, needed a really strong co-teacher, which we had that discussion.
They put a really strong co-teacher in there with me.
Mm-hmm.
We had a couple of extra assistants.
But in terms of, like, was my classroom crazy cuckoo bananas chaos? Maybe, but it was controlled, and it was, like, in the best way.
And I genuinely, when I think about my time in early childhood, that is no matter what, that is where my brain goes.
It's that year, it's that class, it is those children that pop into my head.
And then, of course, after that, I can remember my other years, and I kind of go through the timeline.
But I loved that classroom that was so filled with strong-willed children.
And again, I think it's because I could really, really connect with them.
I totally see what you're saying about the girls versus the boys.
So I grew up in a family with a sister.
We didn't have boys in my family.
And my sister I would define as a strong-willed child for sure.
I don't know that she was necessarily a strong-willed child.
She was definitely a strong-willed teenager, and she is certainly, if you guys think I'm a strong-willed adult, huh, you ain't seen nothing yet.
My sister blows me out of the water.
I mean, there are days where I'm like, "Wow, you make me look like a lame duck with the things that you are doing and saying.
You are so spicy."
Um, and I love it.
And I think that even now as adults, my parents still kind of struggle with us being so spicy and so strong-willed.
I'm sure it's much easier 'cause they're not in charge of our life or our safety or the decisions that we make, and we don't live in their home, obviously.
One point I want to make about, um, teenagers, 'cause you said that she was such a spicy teenager, is from my perspective, all teenagers become spicy ones.
Mm.
And that is because it is a teenager's job in adolescence to separate from their parent and begin to see the things about their parent that they don't want to be about them, and they voice it.
And, um, they're also, because of their brain reconstruction, seeing hostility where it isn't and being sort of aggressive and hostile and critical.
And so there can be this, what feels like a rupture in the relationship, but the beauty is all the moms of spicy ones who have had that curmudgeon of a kid Throughout the whole, you know, first 10 years, it's an easy transition of not taking that personally, of lowering the stakes, of being the calmest person in the room.
And so there's really a benefit to having a challenging child or an explosive child because you learn the skills so that teenagehood is just a blast with these crazy kids.
I love that.
Okay, I love that so much because I have said this for many years, I'm scared of teenagers.
Like, I know babies- Me too like the back of my hand.
I have loved having a baby.
I would have 50 babies if I could.
I know young children five and under so well.
I mean, I could write a book about that.
It's, like, five to eight where I start to be like, "Hmm, I feel about 50% confident."
Eight to 12, I'm like, all right, I'm, like, 25 to 30% confident.
12 plus, I'm like, what am I gonna do with these children? I know nothing about this age group.
I don't know about them.
They're so spicy.
They have got hormones going on.
That is really kind of where my own relationship with my mom kind of started to break down.
And so I feel like I don't even have a good footing of, like, a role model or a past experience that I can rely on, and it does fear...
it fills me with a lot of fear because I feel like I'm going into it blind because- What I hear is that you're going into it with a beginner's mindset.
Ugh.
And our 12-year-olds and 13-year-olds and 14-year-olds need us to be vastly curious about their experience and their knowledge, and you will get so far just by being like, "I don't know.
What's your plan? What do you think?" And so many moms miss the mark because the kid comes to them and is like, "So-and-so said this to me," you know, some awful thing, and we get triggered, and we're like, "What? Okay, here's what you gotta do."
And then they come to us less and less because we're the ones who know, and we're, we always sort of mansplain them.
We tell them what to do.
And so the fact that you're not sure what to do, and you're staying connected to that child and asking them and just being a container where they can process it and be listened to will be chef's kiss.
You're gonna do great.
And so what do you do? You say, like, "Tell me more about that," or, like, "How did that make you feel?" Or, "Did anybody else hear that?" Are you just simply asking inquisitive questions? Yes, because I tell you what, adolescence is a series of heartbreaks.
And you don't even have to be dating- Ugh it is mean girl behavior.
It is not meeting your own expectations.
It is being so embarrassed by something a teacher says.
It's having bad skin.
It's, there's just so many heartbreaks, and we humans, we can do suffering as long as we're not alone.
Mm.
And your child will not be alone because you will be maintaining relationship with them and quieting the parts of you that want to judge or be hypervigilant or scared, quieting that part and s- continuing that curiosity and that, what I call delight.
And I say I want people to be, uh, a I have a cool name for it in the book, but I can't remember it.
It's this, an anthropologist almost.
Like, a delighted anthropologist, that's what it is.
And what I call it in the book is being a delighted anthropologist, where you observe your teenager's culture, what matters to them, what music they like, who they are drawn to with delight.
Like, "Oh, wow," and you're, like, writing in your notebook, and you're in awe as if you can learn, and you are not the expert here.
Because our impact on them and our ability to sort of, "Okay, here's what's gotta do," that pretty much ends at 14.
I mean, it might appear like other people are still able to do it.
I can promise you that kid is just, has learned the face to hold to make the lecture go away quicker.
And things go underground when you keep on trying to use that authoritarian parenting that when y- when you have this individual whose job is to separate and figure out what they want.
So when they bring some big thing and drop that bomb in your lap, you want to watch the face.
I p- I say WTF, like Make your face neutral because you're, you're gonna wanna go into the same way you'd make your face if your girlfriend shared that, and you're like, "That's hot tea.
That's awful."
You know, "I wanna mirror..."
Nope.
We have to be the calmest person in the room.
And then you you might ask them, "What would be most helpful for me? Are you wanting me to listen? Are you wanting advice?" And asking what they want.
I, I want advice, or I wanna know what to do, and this is, like, more like 14, 15, 16, right? The 12-year-old is still open to, uh, what it, what they should do.
And then the last thing is separate out the lesson and the teaching from the moment that you're learning about this thing.
In fact, don't do any of it so that they can't connect.
Don't let them connect.
When I come and I am in a place of, of upset and fear, all I get is a lecture.
Don't let it be the lecture.
You're just listening and gathering information.
You've got more time to have these conversations.
You know, a day later, "Hey, I was thinking about what you said, and I have some thoughts.
May I share them? Is now a good time, or could we go out to lunch tomorrow?" You know, that kind of thing, where you're asking letting them have a little bit of the driver's seat.
Again, all things you've already been doing from two to 10 when you have a spicy one.
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Okay, going back to something that you said earlier when you were like, "You know, I'm not gonna say no right now," and the other people in the room are like, "Oh, my God.
You don't know how to say no to your child," something that popped into my head is like, no, you don't want me to say no to my child, 'cause if I say no to my child right now, this whole room is going to just flip on its head.
So let me navigate this the way that my child is going to receive it the best.
And I think that is really something that I was able to do in the classroom with spicy children, strong-willed children, especially the really explosive ones, that other teachers had not quite gotten yet, is I was able to present things to these children in a way that they best received them.
So let's talk about maybe- Would it be possible for you to take us through a timeline? Like, what about spicy babies under two, and then maybe that two to three period where, you know, they get this bad rap of terrible twos, terrible threes.
Mm-hmm.
I love those toddler years.
You just have to know how to support your child best.
And of course, it is harder when you have a spicy child.
But all two to three-year-olds, it's kind of like teenagers are meant to break away from their parents.
Yeah.
Toddlers are meant to test boundaries.
They are trying to figure out the world around them.
They are trying to figure out the consistency.
They're trying to figure out the adults in their life and which roles everyone plays, and how much they can get away with with which adult, right? And, and who's gonna be that solid person, who's gonna be the flexible person, and you know, unfortunately, who's the unreliable person.
And children are very intuitive and they're very aware, and that's the entire point of toddlerhood, and it's very frustrating as adults to stand by that.
But I think if you understand what's going on in your, in your child's brain, it makes it so much easier, almost enjoyable.
Mm.
Yeah.
You, you said something about in your classroom how you, you were able to finesse sort of the limit, whereas other teachers weren't.
And what you're doing is you're connecting before you direct.
Ugh.
And so when a kid is like, "I want to take all the blue markers," right? We can say, "No, you may not.
Everybody, everybody's gonna get a blue marker and you're not gonna be the only..."
You know, we can go that route, but that is a disruption of con- of, uh, relationship.
So instead, you say, "Oh, what would you do with them all?" You join them in their little fantasy of being the king of the blue markers, and connect for a moment.
Land, just give it...
Sometimes it's as much as three to 10 seconds of like, "Oh yeah, is that what you're wanting? You want all..."
Maybe you're just repeating back, "You want all the blue markers.
That would be fun, wouldn't it be?" And then you direct sh- uh, wh- whatever that's gonna be in that classroom.
Like, "We're gonna let everybody have a d- a thing.
Do you want to go around and see what people are doing with their blue? Come with me."
You know? Or, "What other color would you like?" It's taking that beat to be on the same team before you put the smack down, you know? And I, I mean that, like set the limit.
And one thing about people with explosive, inflexible kids is that we can be afraid a little bit of setting limits, and we can veer into permissiveness.
And I want to say that firmness is not being mean.
This child will need to get a lot of nos in their life to build up their resistance to it.
We just want to be able to pick the time and the place.
So I find one one thing that parents do naturally that doesn't work is sort of trying to avoid the limit like, "Well, maybe, we'll see," or, "Oh, I don't, don't you think?" Like, going into the sort of like that beggar victim, uh, way of speaking, and I...
These children need to find the boundary early and then start their grieving process, 'cause their grieving is so big, right? So if they are...
I do it, and this is one thing that they cannot do because, I don't know, maybe you're, got the whole house set up for a brunch, and they cannot pour at this table because they will spill, and normally that's fine.
Saying, "No, you may not touch this.
This is, this is a no-no area.
You may come over here."
So you're telling them the yes, but you're im- you're saying that no when you can, so they can flail their body back, begin screaming, and we can start the process of the grieving.
And when they are having these big ruptures, don't let that be the thing you start to then discipline about.
Remember what you, what you brought to the party.
It's like, "No, you can't touch the stove."
They're freaking out or they say, "I hate you," and now you're like, "You don't say I don't ha- I hate..."
Nope, we are just gonna focus on the limit we set, and they are following that limit, and now we can be on the same team with them and be empathetic and hold them and say, "It is sad."
To comfort somebody who's upset does not mean I'm gonna change the limit.
It's okay.
I think we, we learned that to set a limit or to discipline when somebody has already, like, crossed a limit, we had to be angry.
"No, you don't do that."
And you actually don't have to be angry.
You can be like, "No, thank you.
No, I'm gonna put my hand here.
You may not."
And now they're crying and they're freaking out.
We can stay tender while setting limits, and I think there's just so much confusion and not a lot of practice with that.
Oh my God, you just nailed exactly what I would do in the classroom.
You know, I would...
They would, they're flailing, and I would just sit beside them and I would say, "You know, HeHe's right here whenever you're ready for a hug."
And they would get their tantrum out, and then they would come crawling in and they would sit in your lap, and I would give them hugs and kiss them, and I would just say like, "I'm so sorry that made you sad."
Please go back to early education.
I can't though.
You sound like you really were healing the world.
I can't.
I can't.
The thing is, there are so many good early educators out there, and birth really needs so much help.
Um, and I love birth so much, but you know, I would- While they're sitting in my lap, I would just say like, "I know that was so sad that you couldn't stick your finger in that light socket, but that was gonna hurt your body, and He He loves you so much, I can't let you hurt your body.
We should probably put some covers on those.
They're in the closet.
Do you wanna walk with me and you can carry them?" Mm.
"Then He He's gonna put the covers in the, in the, you know, light sockets.
That way other friends are safe, too."
And- So what you're doing, can I name that? Of course.
What you're doing is you're helping them be part of the repair.
Ugh.
And that works really well with siblings, too.
When your two-and-a-half-year-old smacks your, um, infant and the infant starts to cry, you know, helping them be a part of the repair, like, "Should we go together and go get the boo-boo fish out of the freezer? We wanna make sure our baby's okay."
Helping them recreate what they destroyed is such a powerful way of letting them not feel like they've been, like, ostracized and are outside the village for the crime they committed, right? Staying on that same team, so important.
So can you talk a little bit about repair? You know, I think it can sometimes feel silly to apologize to a six-month-old or a one-year-old or a three-year-old.
Mm-hmm.
Because a lot of people think, "They're not gonna remember this.
They don't even know what I'm saying.
They don't, they don't know what I'm sorry means."
I grew up in a house that had no repair, and it was something that I had to learn as an adult.
Um, and I didn't really learn it until I met my husband that I'm married to n- now.
I mean, I've only been married once.
I, I don't have multiple husbands, you guys, but um, I guess what I mean- This husband is doing fine.
We don't know about the next one.
This husband taught me.
No, I'm just kidding.
Um, what I mean, I think, is that I had...
Obviously, I dated before him, and I do think that my lack of understanding what it was, my lack of being able to do it, just not even knowing that was part of dis- disagreements and arguments in, in human communication, uh, it, it was probably the downfall of, of a lot of those relationships because they, they probably were thinking, "Dang, this girl just doesn't know how to apologize," and they were right.
I didn't know how to apologize.
I didn't know how to come back and say, "I'm really sorry that I did that.
I'm really sorry that I said that.
I'm really sorry that I responded like that or I reacted like that.
This is what was going through my brain.
I know that was probably really hard for you to hear.
I'm not ever gonna say that to you again, and I w- I wish I could take it back if I could."
Right? Like- Ooh, that's beautiful I didn't know how to say those type of things.
Um, I didn't even know it was a thing.
Well, and if you watch, like...
i'm always amazed when I watch a reality show on dating, like Love Island, somebody will do something so crappy and they have no skills for saying they're sorry, and so then it escalates- Mm and the whole group turns against them.
And I think that's because when we were little- Parents didn't apologize.
It was only our job to apologize.
Ah.
And the apology, say you're sorry, was always laced with a little bit of shame, and if you said you're sorry, it meant you were bad.
And if you're bad, it meant you were kind of unlovable or unworthy.
And so there's all this stuff wrapped up in an apology.
I remember the day I realized in my marriage that to say I was sorry was not to make myself a lesser member of that couple.
It was actually to...
I- it like it...
What's the word? It like, it cr- it, it created our intimacy even more.
It strengthened our intimacy, but I didn't grow up like that.
And thankfully I had some great teachers early on in my motherhood that I knew how important it was to apologize, and I can't speak to what's happening on a soul level, but something is happening when you say to a six-month-old, "I'm so sorry that I grabbed you like that.
You deserve to be treated gently."
Mm.
There is something that transfer and is understood pre-verbally, and when there is trauma or something very upsetting, they don't have the words for it, and we, as the adults, need to put a story to it, and that happens as part of the apology.
I remember I really wanted to be in this book, um, study at a preschool, but my son was not potty-trained yet, and my older daughter was.
And so I could drop her off, but I still had to do something with him, and there was this house nearby that somebody said would watch the kids.
And when I walked in, I got the feeling that it wasn't the right place.
I went against my feeling and left him there be- And the reason why is everybody was sitting and everybody, I'm talking about nine-month to three-year-olds, were all sitting quietly at tables.
And it was quiet, and the teacher said, "Oh, you've joined us at snack time."
And there was something very rigid and structured about it, but I told myself, "No, you just have ADHD, and you can't create that environment.
You're just jealous."
L- And I left him there, and as I was coming back, you know, an hour later, I could hear this wailing and sobbing.
And when I got into the house, he was on the floor crying while everybody else was, again, doing a very...
Like, it was, wasn't age appropriate for him.
And we got in the car, and I started to tell the story about Bad Amanda, okay? Amanda was the, um, name of the, um, the teacher at the time, and there was nothing wrong with her.
Sweet lady.
But I said, "Wow, do you remember the time you were at Bad Amanda's and you just wanted to play outside on all the climbing equipment? But Bad Amanda said, 'No, we're, we're, this is what we're doing,' and you were so sad, and you laid on the floor, and you cried and cried, and then Mommy came and got you?" And he would just nod 'cause he didn't really have the words.
Um, he must have been two.
He would just nod, big-eyed.
And then one day, after telling this story, I probably told it every day for, like, seven days, and that was, and- and I said, "I- I'm sorry I took you there.
Mommy's job is to keep you safe.
And from now on, we're, we're only gonna take you to places that know about how bears," 'cause it, that's his nickname, "how bears like to play."
And then one day he said, "I'ma go see bad Amanda."
And through the conversation, he had grown strength by putting the words to it.
And so we went, and we brought her a little gift, and he walked in, and he looked around, and it was like we were revisiting the scene of his trauma.
And she hugged him.
She was excited to see him, you know, she had, had no ill will.
And I think, I just wanna say that very young children, as part of an apology, need to be told the story of what the heck happened.
Hmm.
'Cause they don't have words for it.
And sometimes we're the bad guy in that story, and that's okay.
Yeah.
I do think that that is, I think it's really important to admit when you did wrong, and I think that, you know, if your child is gonna have any sort of scaffolding of how they are gonna be able to do that as a older child or a teenager or a young adult or an old adult or someone in a relationship, you have to be willing to be vulnerable and say, "Mommy made a mistake.
Dada made a mistake."
Um, and I think that if you want to raise a child that doesn't go through the world thinking that they never make mistakes, you have to model that for them.
Yes.
Yeah.
And I, I think one important part of an apology that none of us got is asking what that was like.
What was it like when Mommy yelled at you? And, uh, because kids c- they can't, they're wired to believe that their provider would never hurt them, never d- that b- they have to survive, right? So they can't really hold the complexity of you hurt me.
So they tend to be like, "It's okay, Mommy.
It's, it's fine."
Like, they wanna move on from that.
And just holding it a little bit longer, like, what was it like when Mommy yelled at you? And maybe they just t- they just shake their head, and you say, "It didn't feel good, did it?" And giving them some of the language.
We're not gonna, like, sit on it too long as a topic, but revisiting it enough and opening up space that like, I care about your experience in that, versus here's like a inner, a, a beginner's apology: I'm really sorry that I hit you.
Do you forgive Mommy? That shouldn't be part of your apology.
That beco- that begins to center you and what you need.
Go talk to your best friend about what you did.
Or a therapist.
But demanding...
Yeah.
Demanding that they, um, they forgive you is really not a part of an apology Now your eyes are getting wet again.
What's happening for you? I wanna know.
Yeah.
I was about to say, it's, that's, that is hard as a parent, right? I can see so many parents being like, I mean, my thought was like, "I don't wanna know.
I don't want to know that.
I don't want you to say," like- Mm-hmm "that was scary.
That made me sad."
Like, I already know that when I yelled at you and I lost my cool that you were sad and scared.
I don't need to hear that from you, and it would just, like, break my heart to hear my child say that, you know? And I think- Well, you don't need to hear it- Yeah but they need to say it out loud because- Ugh some of us don't know how we feel until we're in the presence of somebody else telling our story.
Ugh.
And we see the way their face changes, and their eyes get bigger, and we realize the gravity and the, that our feelings actually matter.
So yes, it's not fun.
Yeah.
And it, but it's, it's important.
And a lot of kids won't say anything back.
They won't have the words, but as they get older, that- They will that scary 8, 9, 10, 11, 12-year-old, they're gonna tell you, "Well, yeah, I didn't like it 'cause I wanted to do this thing," and you get that, like, I had my son once, I came into his room and I was like, "Hey.
We gotta get going today."
He said, "I can't talk to you when your eyebrows are so high."
And I was like, that was really helpful for me.
It was like, oh, I gotta soften my face and settle down a little bit.
That was the mild child.
All right.
Yeah.
I mean, that's just hard, right? As a, as a mom, you never want to hurt your child, ever, and to hear them- But we will do it over and over again.
Yeah.
Like, let us name that it is a normal, typical, average parenting child relationship where you will break, break the sanctity of their trust over and over again being your worst self.
You're in this intimate relationship.
You have a lot of power over them.
We're going to mess up a lot, but if you think about your best friends, the ones that you're ride or die, you probably had an altercation with them or a conflict, and you decided to actually talk through that conflict.
And there is another level of intimacy that happens when I come to you vulnerable and say, "That wasn't okay what I did."
Mm.
"You're, you deserve to have a body that feels safe, and Mommy grabbed your hand and did it really tight, and that was not okay."
And then the other part of the apology is, from now on, I'm going to, it's like giving some kind of hope that is something gonna be different? And I think sometimes our sadness around an apology is that, like, I'm just gonna do it again.
Well, no you're not, because you're gonna name what's gonna help you not do it again.
Um, like, I'm going to exhale for three seconds.
You know, little things like I'm gonna try this tiny practice that's going to help me be a calmer version of myself.
I love that so much.
You're just healing so many of our inner children that we just didn't get.
And again, I just think our parents didn't know.
Okay, so- How much of this is based on nervous system? Is it just like all wired in our nervous system and our child's nervous system, and how those two interact? Um, how do I answer that? I mean, I think that there...
I am a believer that you have to have kind of have to believe in a higher power to do your best parenting, because some of this stuff is out of our control.
And yes, there's nervous system, and there's the fact that we're mammals, and there's entrainment, which is like if you put two hearts, two beating hearts next to each other, they be- they find that middle ground of tempo.
And so there's a lot happening that's very physical and or neurological.
But then there's also just like spiritually what's happening.
Like, we're learning how to love unconditionally like God does, and it is a, um, clunky, awkward process because we're expecting that people earn our love, especially when they're our child, and this spicy one will not earn your affection.
You're gonna have to learn how to give it unconditionally, and so that to me transcends nervous systems.
But ask me in a different way.
No, no, no, I mean, that, that was perfect.
That's exactly what I was looking for.
I think that, you know, a lot of us can feel very disconnected from strong-willed children, from these spicy children, and we're often asking the question of like, "What's wrong with us? Why can't I parent this child right? Why can't I parent this child in a way that the o- other people in my life seem to be able to do it? The, the world-" Well, a couple reasons that come to mind immediately, and one is that they are triggering some stuff that happened to us in childhood.
Ah.
And this little kid yelling at you feels a lot in your body like when your dad yelled at you or when your, the guy you dated who was abusive.
And there's this, this feeling that, "Oh, hell no, not now, not now that I'm an adult."
So when we feel rage, it's generally not about what's happening in front of us.
It is the youngest parts of us basically screaming, "Hell no, I won't go through that again.
This feels too much like it."
And so it's doing the work to separate out, like...
And I sometimes do the babysitter test.
Like, if a babysitter was here and my kid was acting this way, would they just be like, "Oh, okay, well..."
Like, would they be nonplussed, or would my sister-in-law just be like, "Okay, no, we're not gonna do that," whereas I'm like, "How dare you?" Right? Like, if it's bringing up my rage monster, it's not really about this kid, it's about my past.
So that is some of it, and I already forgot the second one.
I love it.
Okay, I, y- you, w- we keep tiptoeing around this idea of re-parenting ourself.
So this just must be part of parenting in general, question mark? Oh, yeah.
The first five- Or parenting a spicy one? I think it's...
I think that the parents of spicy ones are going to be more emotionally mature by the end of it than folks that just had a kid that went along to get along, and I say this.
So I think that we are being called into, I call it, a spiritual retreat, like, a, that we didn't sign up for, and it's 18 years.
And yes, we are gonna have to grow a capacity that we didn't have, and learning and growing is very uncomfortable.
Consciousness hurts, and so there is some pain in this process.
But the first five, six chapters of Parenting a Spicy One book are all about, hold on, let's talk about you.
Are you highly sensitive maybe? Do you have a high need for order and control? Does your inner child need to hear some tender things? Because what we didn't have accepted by others growing up, we will not accept in our child.
What we don't like about ourselves, we will attack in our child.
And unfortunately, when we do that, we just create the cycle again, because the thing we don't like in our child, we speak it out loud, and they begin to not like it in themselves, and we sort of help create this negative self-talk.
So yeah, a lot of work to do inside.
So I don't get to the, the discipline and all the tips and techniques for dealing with a strong-willed child until the second half of the book.
First, it's like, well, hold on, let's not only be tender with your inner child, let's think about, do you have an inner mean girl? Do you have this voice on repeat that says, um, "You're screwing it up again.
Everybody else should be able to do this."
And when we become aware of that voice, and it's like, hold on, honey, I am trying to parent with calm, kind, and firm vibes, and you are not helping with these critical comments.
And so being aware that there is a part of you that's always gonna have her arms crossed and be like, "You're screwing it up.
You're screwing it up."
Or some of us have a hypervigilant Chicken Little part that's like, "Oh my gosh, this kid's gonna be a psychopath."
That's not helpful.
That's not helpful, and we have to become aware.
This is a little bit of internal family systems, and I am not a therapist.
I'm a parenting coach.
But becoming aware of the parts of you that desperately want to help but are not helpful, and they need to get out of the driver's seat and get in the back seat, and you can be aware of them.
I hear you.
I hear you thinking that my child's going to not be able to hold down a job because I can't get them to help me w- empty the dishwasher.
Thank you.
I'll handle this.
Letting the adult parts of you Do the parenting Oh, my God.
Internal family systems was one of my favorite courses that I took, uh, while getting my master's, and it was one of those courses that I think also healed a little piece of me.
It gave me so much resolution, validation, gave me answers to the things that my soul kinda knew was missing in my own family or my own childhood, or things I was longing for, and it made sense of them.
It put a name to them.
It was able to give me a definition of, you know, the things that I had experienced growing up.
Just, oh, my gosh.
Okay.
I wanna know, 'cause you had mentioned permissive parenting.
First of all, we had mentioned permissive parenting in a way of how the world kind of perceives it, right? And, um, you know, in strong-willed child/adult fashion, I couldn't give a crap what the people around me think about my parenting.
I'm like that now.
I was like that pre-Saggy.
I didn't need a baby to not care about anybody and their opinion.
But with that, what do you say to people who are struggling to define or, or find their balance of respectful parenting versus permissive parenting, right? Especially if you have people chirping in your ear of, like, "You need to have more rules with this child.
You need to have more boundaries.
Like, why can't you ever say no to them?" It can be really hard to have the people around you not understand, A, your child, but, B, your parenting style, C, your relationship with your child.
That can just be really hard, and if you don't have my personality and my attitude where you're like, "I really don't give a damn what you say"- Mm-hmm that can be really, really challenging.
Hmm.
Well, I actually have scripts in the book.
Ooh, love.
That, because I have a whole chapter that my publisher wouldn't let me include in called Handling the Judgment of Others, and so it's like you download it after you buy the book.
But the first step is to get clear for yourself.
We can't really convince you know, our judgy mother-in-law that what we're doing makes sense until we feel really grounded and firm about our str- strategy with this kid.
And so- Read my book.
And then you and pull together, like on a piece of paper, what kind of parent do you want to be for this child? What kind of relationship do you want 15 years from now when they're coming home from college and they're excited to see you for Thanksgiving, how would they describe the relationship? And when you have this long-term view, and you've done the research to read the books that are evidence-based, and talk to people who have raised a spicy one and they're a highly successful adult, then you can feel like this resolve within you to be like, "Thank you, Mother-in-law.
We're parenting X, Y, Z."
And you've gotta come up with your own wording.
I give a bunch of examples for that.
But I think it's also important when you're dealing with a judgmental person who you love that's in your life to name that you both have a shared objective.
Like, and this is just like classic negotiations, right? But to say, "Wow, I know that you love this kid so much, and I know that we both want them to grow up to be a caring adult that contributes well to society.
I love that we both are on the same page with that.
I think we have different ways of getting there, and as the parent," gotta pull that card, "I have decided to go with evidence-backed research and techniques that are specific to a strong-willed child because strong-willed children are more susceptible to issues in parenting approaches."
They've done much research, and the high, the, the highs and the lows of how a strong-willed child responds to certain types of parenting are so intense, whereas a mild child, you can kinda like mess it up or be amazing, and you're not gonna get that much of a difference.
So it's this high reactivity means you have to really choose the way you're gonna parent, and it's gonna be primarily positive reinforcement, setting expectations, and stroking that relationship.
So do you believe in the 80/20 rule, that if you get it right 80% of the time and you mess it up 20% of the time, that you're still doing pretty good? I think it's less than that.
Oh.
I don't think you have to even be that great 80%.
I, and I think it's, it's also messing up and being okay with naming that you messed up.
Like be, not being, thinking you need to tell your child you're infallible.
I think a lot of, um...
Back in the day, parents thought they represented God or something.
Mm.
And they needed to seem like they, um, were without blemish in everything they did, and it's because I said so.
And that, look how, I mean, we're probably the ge- generation, we, I mean you, 'cause I'm older than you, you are the generation that's most likely to go no contact with their parents.
And, um, I think the spicy one is the type of child that will choose to be estranged if there's not a strong relationship.
And so the stakes are so damn high that apology and transparency will need to be a big part of your journey.
And not when they're five or six.
I mean, you peel, you pull back the veil more and more as they get older, but you don't have to be a perfect parent.
Oh my gosh, I love to hear that so much.
Okay, so my final question is for any parent out there that's listening that has come to this conversation feeling like they are failing their child, what do you want them to hear? That your child is not broken and neither are you, and your journey just starts with getting calm.
Mm.
You being calm and grounded is going to shift a lot of things in the family, and it may mean that for a bit there's poor customer service.
You don't have to be that amazing mom who, who does the homemade dinner and packs the lunches.
Maybe you are just tending to your nervous system and your anxiety, and finding your way to settle everything down, and stop clenching your belly, and loosen your jaw and lower the stakes.
Have an open hand to what's happening.
And then you can move into helping, you know, teach and adjust and and all that.
But start with yourself and caring for yourself.
It, this, it's finally time to tend to yourself and care for you.
Oh my gosh, I love it.
Okay, Mary, ugh, I hate when we run out of time and I still have so many questions.
Ugh.
We'll have to do a part two.
Maybe three, four, five, six.
Should we start our own podcast, question mark? Oh my goodness, this has been so, so good.
I think, again, I mean, I've said it multiple times, but you have really, you've touched on a lot of pain points that I think people my age are feeling.
I think a lot of first-time parents are going into this with a lot of fear because maybe we don't have the best relationships with our parents.
Maybe we didn't have that model growing up.
Maybe we aren't sure how we are gonna show up as a parent because we don't have someone in our life that is modeling the parent that we want to be.
Um, and I think that this conversation was so good for that, and I can't wait to get your book into everybody's hands.
So on that note, if people wanted to learn from you, connect with you follow you on Instagram, get your book, how can they do that? Uh, they can pick up their phone and go to maryvangeffen.com.
Uh, and yes, I'm on Instagram every day giving, uh, free tips and tricks and entertaining there.
But to do the deep work, um, I would invite you to join Moms of Spicy Ones Academy.
It's a subscription, and you come in and all my classes are in there, but more importantly, you get to get on calls with me and ask your questions and get coached by me and be in community with other people who are raising rascals and trying to do some self-love in the process.
So being i- yeah in my mentorship and having somebody that you can ask questions of and watch how they handle their nervous system is really important.
Ugh, I think that is the key for me.
I'm, I, I am not discrediting your, your coaching at all, but I think that more importantly it's that community to not feel alone, because when you have a spicy child and everyone else in your life is judging your parenting, they don't understand your child, they don't understand the way that you interact with your child, their children aren't like this.
Why don't you just treat your child like they treat their child? That can be so hard.
It feels so isolating.
It feels like you're doing it wrong.
It constantly works on you and your mental health and your nervous system, so just getting around other parents who will say, "I know.
I'm there, too.
Hold my hand.
We're doing this together," is so healing.
Oh my God, I'm crying again.
Ugh.
I love it.
This is so good.
All right, Mary, you have been fantastic.
Everyone grab Parenting a Spicy One.
It will obviously change your life if you are struggling to parent your child, if you're struggling to show up in a way that your child needs you to show up or in a way that you want to show up for your baby, go ahead and grab that book.
All right, you guys, I will see you in the next episode.
Be sure to follow Mary on social media.
You can find me at tranquilitybyhehe and at the.birth.lounge.
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