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Emily Hughes: Why Most Parenting Advice Fails High-Achieving Families · The BEYOND Podcast

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  Unknown: The most popular question about parenting is am I a good parent? I've worked with over a thousand
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  parents. I don't like the misinformation. If you are worried that you are not good enough,
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  it means that you care. Connection is at the key of all of this. What's the hardest truth about
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  parenting that no one wants to hear? I think one of the hardest truths about parenting is Emily
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  Hughes is an expert parenting coach who helps high functioning parents stay calm under pressure,
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  set boundaries without shouting, and lead their families with steady, confident authority. There's
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  some really amazing evidence on the outcomes for kids who were emotion coached. They are
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  more successful in every metric of life success. Too often in parenting, we are getting stuck in
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  shortterm gain for long-term pain. One of the first questions I ask when I meet parents is,
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  "What is your long-term vision?" Young children are primed for survival. As parents, we need to
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  be modeling the behavior we wish to see in our children. There's no mastery in parenting. I
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  see parenting as the ultimate portal for personal growth. Boundaryless parenting, it serves nobody.
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  Growth involves suffering. Teenagers need to be more controlled. The thing that I really think
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  teenagers need is media literacy. If you gave them that phone, they'd be gone. They'd never you never
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  see them again. We live in a nonoptimal society. You should be the primary source of influence
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  for your child. Okay, we're doing something a little bit different today. We're going into
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  the parenting zone. How to be a good parent. And um lots of people watching are parents.
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  some very young and some grandparents even and we don't always get it right and there's a lot
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  of confusing information out there about parenting and then parenting also affects our professional
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  lives you know it's all intertwined so it's highly relevant and what I always love to do is bring in
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  the experts I don't like the fake information the misinformation I want the true experts in
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  and that's why you're here Emily so for those that don't know you tell our viewers is who you are and
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  why you are truly a parenting expert. So, yeah, I'm a conscious parenting coach and I've worked
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  with over a thousand parents across my coaching and through my courses to really help parents
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  to get to what matters most. And I spent 10 years as a secondary school teacher before embarking on
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  this. And what interested me most about that was how you get to raise great kids. And throughout
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  my experience as a teacher and then training as a coach and also training in somatic work,
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  so of the body because we all know parenting is both a mind and body experience. Okay, that's a
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  that's a crazy way to think about it, but it is a mind and body experience. Anyone who's a parent
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  will know exactly what we're talking about here. Okay. So, you are, you know, you're certified,
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  you're trained, you've spoken to thousands of parents, and and you've worked with kids
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  in a in a in a teaching setting. So, you know, a thing or two about the little terrors, the cuties,
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  the little cutie pies. So in preparation for this podcast I asked Chachi PT what the most popular
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  question was that parents asking on Google. So what is the frequently most typed thing question
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  that parents asked? Do you know what it was? Am I a good parent? Yeah. Yeah. And I think this
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  speaks to doubt which is such a common feeling in parenting. And I think that the it's really
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  interesting in my coaching work that the limiting belief that comes up so much in parenting is I'm
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  not good enough. And often that's lurking in the shadows underneath our parenting. And really
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  what I think parents need to understand is that parenting is not school. This is not something
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  that you pass or fail at that there's an exam at. This is a long journey and there is always
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  time to reconnect to change the dynamic. It's never too late. And when we're in that mindset,
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  which is more of a growth mindset, because this kind of idea that we might be failing, it's a very
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  fixed mindset way of looking at parenting, but really being abundant, that we have enough time.
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  And one of the things that I'm always leaning my clients towards is leaning into their capability.
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  So, it's not about good or bad. It's about being capable. And when you feel capable, so much begins
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  to be possible. So yeah, focusing less on the moral judgment and leaning into your capability
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  and also your commitment to your child because if you are worried that you are not good enough, it
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  means that you care and caring aligning that with kind of your integrity that's what will actually
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  help you to thrive as a parent. I mean, if we do step into that sort of the doubt field and just
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  massage that for a second because it's a very real thing for parents. I've heard a lot of parents say
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  that um if my kids are still speaking to me, you know, want to hang out with me when they're older
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  and they don't need to, you know, then that's successful parenting. What do you what do you say
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  to that? Yeah, that's definitely something that people say and yeah, I agree. It really is about
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  the metrics that you are judging your parenting against. And I always say that, you know,
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  connection is at the key of all of this. And if you are building connected relationships with your
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  children and those connected relationships lost, then I would define that as being What do you mean
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  by connected? Do you mean we we communicate and we understand each other? What what is
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  the connection? Yeah, I think it's communication. It's understanding and it's something more soulful
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  I think. So one of my clients said to me which I really really loved. She said she'd been focusing
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  a lot on her child's academic success but she had been neglecting the more kind of soulful
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  attunement. And what I mean by attunement, how I describe that is it's a bit like two people
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  playing piano together. And if you are attuned to your child, your child is playing their their
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  piece and you are doing a harmonious duet with them. But if you are misatuned to your child,
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  your child is playing their tune and you're coming in kind and that is the kind of misatunement. And
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  every child is different and playing a different tune. And part of our journey as parents,
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  I believe, is to attune to that tune and to gently guide that into maturity and adulthood. You know,
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  you actually see it quite a lot in in the academic schools, you know, the the grammar schools and
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  the ones where they put a lot of pressure on that these kids are drowning in academics.
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  You have that okay there's extremes where they're not probably not doing enough work in some schools
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  and then the other ones are they pushing you a lot and then they are but then yes there's
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  this neglect on the emotional upbringing which is such an important part you know
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  what happened at school today how you know how was that friend of yours or how's that
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  person that's not been that nice what what's the latest you know juice on that or whatever and just
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  sort of tapping into their day emotionally how they've navigated it. It's it's quite a Yeah. So,
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  what you're what you're speaking on there is is kind of emotion coaching. Yeah. And there's some
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  really amazing evidence on the outcomes for kids who were emotion coached, who had parents who were
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  interested in the child's emotional world. And those children they end who are emotion coached,
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  they are more successful in every metric of life success. So they're more successful academically,
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  socially, even health. And really, this is at the core of everything. It's like, how are we raising
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  emotionally intelligent kids? But in order to to do that, we sometimes need to raise our
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  own emotional intelligence. That's certainly my journey in parenting. I thought I was emotionally
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  intelligent. And I swiftly realized in my first few years of parenting that I was not emotionally
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  intelligent. And that's been like a big quest for me. A toddler's going to test you. Toddlers are
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  the most, you know, the strictest. Think about clients. You talk about a toddler is demanding.
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  They have no patience with you and any nonsense that your baggage you might be carrying. You know,
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  a toddler is a is a special species, I would say. Um, what's the hardest truth about parenting that
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  no one wants to hear? I think one of the hardest truths about parenting is really around control
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  because so often in our lives, you know, from when we became an adult to when we had kids,
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  we are largely in control of our lives. Then children come along and the truth is that you
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  cannot fully control a child because you can't make a child sleep, you can't make a child eat,
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  and you can't make a child defecate. Right? And it can be a massive challenge to our need
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  for control. And really one of the greatest things that we can accept is that humans are
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  really hardwired to not be easily controlled. And when we accept that that control is not
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  the goal but guiding and finding ways to attune and gain cooperation, it's possible to do this.
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  But when we are stuck in feeling like I need to control everything because I'm not safe unless
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  I'm controlling everything. That's where people get stuck in. You're making me think of the Super
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  Nanny episodes. I don't know if the viewers are going to recognize or remember Super Nanny, but
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  yeah, when she goes around and then she's trying to well, the toddler is actually trying to control
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  the household normally and the toddler's making the rules about when it goes to bed. Normally,
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  it's these really like strong empowered toddlers that that really want to rule the show. That's
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  what makes good TV, right? You've got the toddler who's trying to control the household and then
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  you've got this desperate parent who can't control the toddler and the super nanny comes in and she
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  then controls the parent and the toddler and she does this whole naughty step thing and in a way I
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  feel like the toddler's temporarily controlled and then she goes and then the it's all Yeah.
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  Yeah. And one of the things I think about the supernal approach is I don't think it's very
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  wise. Why? Why is it not wise? Because it's not wise. It's really rooted in disconnection. And
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  any parenting approach that is rooted in disconnection, so sending the child away,
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  that's not really gaining the longterm vision that you want for your family. Because whenever
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  I speak to one of the first questions I ask when I meet parents is, "What is your long-term
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  vision?" Because this is the thing. So often in parenting, we are getting stuck in shortterm gain
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  for long-term pain. But really, when we think about what we truly want for our child's life,
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  what we I believe that we all really deeply at our core want to raise wise elders. Now, that
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  might sound a bit funny if you've got listening to this and you've got a four-year-old at home, but I
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  think that that is really the end. It's good. we want that's really the end point to raise a wise
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  elder right and um if you are doing that through disconnection through blame shame punishment the
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  child is not learning how to be wise and so I think the parents role through connection is to be
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  the wise guide the wise teacher because the truth is if your child develops emotional intelligence
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  parenting is going to be so much easier for you. But you sometimes hear parents and you know, well,
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  parents lose it, don't they? When they get really frustrated with their kids and they'll shout at
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  them and you sort of think, but but when you're three, yeah, you're not going to understand what
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  what the shouting message is, are you? There's a big can a three-year-old understand shouting. I
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  think one of the things here is as parents, we need to be modeling the behavior we wish
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  to see in our children. And when we model high reactivity and being out of control, it's not
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  really effective. Now, I'm a realist. I think, you know, it's the way that we most of us have been
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  parented. It's almost impossible to parent without occasionally shouting. I'm not going to, you know,
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  claim that that's an easy thing to do. But I think if we commit to begin again every time we shout,
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  we're not going to get lost in the guilt and shame of the fact that we've shouted. We just commit
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  to begin again and try to do better. And I think, you know, one of the things about young children,
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  young children are primed for survival. And how do they survive? Well, they survive by
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  getting our attention. And they survive by getting a high energy. And if you are shouting at a child,
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  of course, like it's not nice, but for a child's perspective, they're like, "Ah, I'm getting
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  attention and I'm getting high um high source of energy from you." And for a child, that means
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  survival. And the child's not sophisticated enough yet to be able to get that kind of high input
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  energy in like a healthier way. I suppose what I'm asking it's um maybe not the occasional shout in
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  case some shout too too much but it's maybe it's it's more as they go through the levels and I mean
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  this is now I'm I'm speaking just as like I don't have parent coaching or anything but I'm a parent
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  of three girls who are now teenagers you know my oldest is 18 18 16 and 14 and um I I found
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  that at every stage you would have to communicate with them a little bit differently I mean there's
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  no I think there's would be zero point in shouting at you shout at a baby. You can't shout at a one
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  three-year-old. What are you going to what are you going to shout? They don't understand what you're
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  talking about, you know? So, it's almost like you have to like you evolve with them and your
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  communication changes and they can only understand certain things at certain ages, you know, if they
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  can't even they can't work out a complicated maths formula, your whatever yelling, they're not going
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  to really comprehend that either. So, it's like you can't even do that even if you wanted to. But,
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  it's almost like you develop with them as they grow and you give them what they can handle. Is
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  that 100% you? Yeah. And I believe that you know there's no mastery in parenting because as soon
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  as you feel like you've mastered parenting as you've described your child goes through
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  another developmental milestone they change. They offer you fresh material all of the time. Fresh
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  content. Yeah. Fresh content. And this is really why I you you know you mentioned growth there.
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  I see parenting as the ultimate portal for for personal growth. The ultimate portal because your
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  child is giving you many potential triggers. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And each of those triggers you have
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  the choice as to what to do with them. And this is why. So each trigger that your child gives you,
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  we could look at it as being a gift. Now, I know that might seem like a little bit of a stretch,
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  but it's a gift to understand yourself more deeply and to really understand what it is to be a human
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  as well, because humans are emotionally messy and complicated and parenting is the most emotionally
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  complex thing you are ever likely to do. And this is true. Yeah. embracing that as a a a journey of
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  growth and a chance to understand yourself, your children, and what it means to be alive
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  as a human. Tell that to the parents who have crayon all over their house and the mess. I mean,
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  you've got to feel for parents sometimes cuz some some kids, you know, and well, there's different
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  levels, I suppose, of madness, but you know, these parents, they work so hard, you know, well,
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  and they come back exhausted and sometimes the kids Yeah. they it is hard work. It's definitely
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  a challenge to to be a a good parent, I think, for everyone. Yeah. And I think within that,
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  one of the things that I think we need to get very cleareyed on is the fact that we have all
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  been sold a lie. And the biggest lie is is that the nuclear family is normal. The nuclear family
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  is not normal. If you look at the history of humans as a species, it's something like 2% of
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  all humans have been operating within the nuclear family. And the other 98% were in tight close-knit
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  communities, intergenerational families living together or tribes. And when so by nuclear family,
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  you mean the mom and dad and then the siblings, just the the small unit, you're not talking
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  about the great grandparents and then the small community that would support you, the people who
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  live in your house. Yeah. Basically. Okay. Yeah. And um when they study huntergatherer parents,
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  you know, in tribes that are still existing today, up to 14 adults are responsible for
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  each child's care. And this idea that we are meant to be thriving, parenting mainly by ourselves is
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  unrealistic. And the more that we can embrace that and really I you know one of the things I
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  tell my clients is one of the challenges of modernday parenting is to thrive within the
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  nonoptimal situation that we find ourselves in and to embrace the fact that it is nonoptimal.
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  We're meant to be parenting with support from many other adults and we don't have that and that is
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  why it's so sometimes you don't want that support because you've got different parenting styles. So,
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  you know, not the classic like mother-in-law. I'm lucky with my mother-in-law. But sometimes
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  you might have, you know, one that's, you know, parenting in a way that you think,
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  oh my goodness, or you're handing them sweets or maybe, you know, whatever, whatever it might be,
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  but you have differences and that can cause friction cuz parenting is a touchy subject. It
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  is a very touchy subject. Parents get upset. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's one of the hard things
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  about parenting in Britain is that there's so much choice on how you could parent. And you know, in
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  other cultures around the world, the community is the third parent. And we don't have that because
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  everybody's parenting in a very different way. And often parents are watching each other. Yeah.
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  Because part of why we're watching each other is to be like, well, what are they doing? Should I
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  be doing that? And this creates this environment where shame thrives. Because when we feel like
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  people are watching us and when we feel like we are not supported by community and that perhaps
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  we might be getting it wrong, shame thrives. And I think that shame is what is lurking under so
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  much parental reactivity. And parents can find it well humans can find it so hard to identify the
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  emotion that I am feeling is shame because even talking about shame people want to lean away from
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  from shame. Um but it is the powerful driving force underneath so much of our reality. I mean
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  when when you when you talk about this I have about a million different thoughts but there's
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  I'll categorize them into two the one half of my brain will sympathize and think it's horrible to
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  be you know judged and you should parent the way that your instincts tell you because you you know
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  you normally your gut instinct is correct and you should trust that and you know what works in one
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  culture might not work in another culture and you should just really trust that and have faith in
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  yourself and go for it. And then the other part of my brain say, "Yeah, but what about Yeah. When you
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  see these things and you see someone's toddler going crazy and publicly and just misbehaving
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  and being completely rude to the parents, you think, why aren't you parenting?" And then you are
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  yourself being this judgy person. And it's like an instinctive thing. But also on LBC the other day,
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  I was driving and I put it on and there was an argument. And honestly, it was so passionate this
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  conversation about um kiddies being allowed into nursery school. You're talking about three year
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  olds, four-year-olds in nappies. And some of the callers were calling in and getting really upset,
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  you know, and saying that it's horrible lazy parenting and why is this happening? And again,
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  you sort of feel on the one hand, well, there must be a reason why, you know, maybe they've had
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  difficulty and maybe the finances aren't in order. You don't know what happened. Maybe they're very
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  ill. You just don't know. Yeah. Right. But then on the other hand, you sort of think, but yes,
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  why aren't you why is your child not nappies at that age? And you can't help but be judgy. I mean,
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  it's a horrible muddy thing to step into, but you understand what I Yeah. what I'm saying.
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  Yeah. And I think part of this again leans into a more societal problem that we don't
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  support parents and that we actually devalue parenting as a society. From the get-go,
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  we devalue parenting as a society. You can see that through like, you know, paternity, um,
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  leave, um, maternity, you know, it's like go go go, don't worry about being a parent, even though
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  that is your most single most important job if you decide to have this child, that's your priority.
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  Yeah. And you see that in the way that you know money has been taken from like support services
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  like for for years you know and um so part of this this is at a societal level where I think parents
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  are are not supported and I think another thing that has happened a good point. Yeah, good point.
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  Is that we as a society, we are as a generation of parents, unlike perhaps our parents' generation,
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  we've grown up aware of the impact that parenting can have on children through the sort of mass
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  popularization of psychology, through the media, through culture, and we're also a a much more
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  traumainformed society. Now what this can end up doing for some parents is that they are so worried
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  about causing harm to their child that actually they are unable to set boundaries because in order
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  to set a boundary the child needs to undergo a small amount of suffering because it is hard for
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  a child to meet a boundary. That's just hard. Children are not going to like your boundaries.
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  But what can end up happening and I would say that those I I would relabel that lazy parenting
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  to being boundaryless parenting. And the thing is with boundaryless parenting is that it serves
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  nobody. It doesn't serve the child and it doesn't serve the parent. And again, it's shortterm gain
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  for long-term pain. Long-term pain. Yeah. All those nappies as well. the environmental impact.
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  And um really I think what this is is parents needing more trust that you can set boundaries
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  within that boundary the child will experience a small amount of suffering. Right? And your role
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  is to support the child through that suffering. Not to eliminate suffering because that's not
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  how life works, but to support the child through that and really that is where we can find more
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  progress and more peace in our parenting helping each other. I think helping each other as parents
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  if you you know gently, you know, if someone needs it, you can say, "Well, I'm available to
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  do this and that." If you just helping each other, I think that that that's quite a cool thing to do,
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  especially in when you know each other, you're all in the same, you know, your kids are friends, you
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  might as well, you know, if you can help someone, that's good. And also being prepared to suffer
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  ourselves because I think the inconvenience of having to go everywhere with a party and have to,
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  you know, get them up and sit with them and wait and it's all that inconvenience that we
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  just have to also inconvenience ourselves. 100%. Get used to it. Yeah. It's like how can we feel
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  more safe in suffering? Because growth involves suffering. Pain. It does. And you um yeah there's
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  a nice analogy of the soft shell crab. Have you ever heard this one? No. No. Go on. So the soft
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  shell crab in order to gain its in order to grow the crab needs to shed its old hard shell which
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  is a painful process. And then it goes through this sort of vulnerable process where it's its
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  shell is soft. And then as it's developing and growing, that shell becomes harder, more sturdy,
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  more resilient, more robust. But then it gets to another point where the inside of the crab is
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  starting to outgrow the shell. And again, it goes through this more vulnerable process of shedding
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  the old shell, having the more vulnerable soft shell. And that is what parenting is like. It's
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  this suffering, vulnerability. But how we help our child through that is through empathy. And that's
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  the key thing when we're setting boundaries. What will help us to set boundaries is empathy. I'm
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  setting this boundary because it is for your good, for your long-term good. But I see this
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  is hard for you. Yeah, it's empathy. Hard to be empathetic with a screaming toddler. So, but yeah,
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  but you you need to have that sensitivity to them. And I really think empathy sets you free as well.
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  Empathy is not just a gift for the child. It's a gift for yourself because when you're showing up
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  in empathy for the child, you simply by default are more empathetic with yourself. Why why do
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  kids or why how why can kids why are they able to I mean do they have some sort of innate ability
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  to to wind their parents up sometimes? Like you know a toddler just saying no. The toddler is just
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  like, "No, no, no." or teenager or whatever. Is it because they know us? They know what buttons
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  to push and they they quite actually they are emotionally intelligent and they know
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  our parenting defects. Like why why do kids get to their parents in that way? Even like really
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  top tier CEOs, they'll crumble, you know, where their kids can floor them, you know? Yeah. Humble
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  them. For the majority of the time, I think that labeling our children's behavior as them trying to
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  manipulate us is not helpful because most of the time what it is is a child with an unsophisticated
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  brain that's not fully developed yet trying to get their needs met in the only way they know how.
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  And if that is triggering us, if that is pushing our buttons, it is because it is poking at some
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  unhealed wound within us or some limiting belief that we're not good enough or that we're not heard
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  or that we don't matter. Okay. Okay. I'll take this a step further. So what if and this happens
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  cuz I've spoken to a lot of parents and I've had an experience with this myself where you'll have
• 28:37
  the child children who will play parents off against each other. They'll say, "Oh, but oh,
• 28:44
  can I do this?" and say, "Well, no, because we don't do that." And they'll say, "Well,
• 28:49
  dad said I can do it and dad would say yes." And then they'll go to dad and they'll be like,
• 28:55
  "Well, mom's mom said no." And it's not, you know, they'll sort of play the parents. Or they'll say
• 29:03
  things like, "Oh, well, you did it for so and so for the for, you know, I'm not the favorite then
• 29:08
  if you're not doing it for me." Clever. Mhm. I don't know. That's why I say manipulative because
• 29:14
  that is what an adult would call manipulation because you're playing people and they smart kids.
• 29:21
  Yeah. So, what you've done there is a tool that I use in my coaching called finding the jewel. And
• 29:26
  when you find the jewel in your child's behavior, you are able to show up with less reactivity. So,
• 29:34
  what you did there was find the jewel in the behavior, which is the jewel. The jewel is that
• 29:39
  that's clever. That's intelligent behavior, right? And if you are able to find the jewel,
• 29:46
  now that doesn't mean you condone the behavior, but if you are able to find the jewel in it and
• 29:51
  go, "Ah, I see I see what you're doing." Then you are able to stay more grounded in your response.
• 29:59
  Whereas if you are reacting to that, you've gone down to the level of a child, right? And you know,
• 30:08
  I think that there's something deeper at play here within that. If the child knows that they
• 30:13
  can do that, then that speaks to something that has not happened within the the two parents,
• 30:20
  which is to find alignment on their values. Now, you do not need to parent exactly the same as your
• 30:28
  um partner, but where you do need to what you might need to work on is having alignment over
• 30:37
  your values. And what I mean by your values is what you deem to be deeply important. And if this
• 30:45
  Yeah. If you and your partner have a shared understanding of what you deem to be deeply
• 30:50
  important, then you are going to be far less easy to play off against each other. You see,
• 30:55
  they know that cuz when it comes to sweets, for example, I don't like sweets. I don't want them
• 31:00
  in the house. I don't want to hear it from the dentist. So, have they been eating sweets? And
• 31:05
  it's um um yeah, I don't I don't buy them. My husband buys the sweets, brings them in
• 31:12
  the house and puts them in the cupboard and then they go and then they Well, dad bought the sweets,
• 31:17
  you know, and it is one of those things, but dad likes the sweets and he wants the sweets,
• 31:21
  and he doesn't see it as a big problem that they have the occasional sweet. I don't like the sweet.
• 31:25
  I don't want it in the house. I think if it's in the house, they're tempted. Yeah. So, on that,
• 31:29
  no, we're not aligned. You're spot on. Yeah. Never have been on sweets. Yeah. And you know, you might
• 31:36
  it might point there to perhaps the dad has more of a value on like freedom and and you have more
• 31:44
  of a value. Perhaps it's health. Yeah. Yeah. And Yeah. And when those two values are coming
• 31:51
  into conflict, that's really where sort of a a dysfunction lies. But but you know, so if I may,
• 31:59
  I also find it's good though. I I I find that it's good when it's especially as they get older that
• 32:03
  into teenagers whether there is a need to open up that freedom a bit more because you have to
• 32:09
  develop and you have to learn to be free. I mean and and if you're too protective so actually I
• 32:14
  think it's kind of good on some things but bad on others. So I I have no no solution I'm giving
• 32:21
  it to you. Yeah. Um yeah and you know I think um within what you said there around sort of giving
• 32:28
  your children freedom as as they grow you know one of the things that can be really impactful is
• 32:36
  trust and helping your child to develop the skill of being trustworthy and you know with this sweet
• 32:44
  situation um there's a there's a really nice piece of research which is about children over the age
• 32:49
  of 10 respond really really well to being given status and respect. So with something like sweets,
• 32:57
  rather than sort of telling them, you know, you shouldn't eat sweets. They're bad for your teeth,
• 33:02
  it goes down, you know, it doesn't go down well, right? But if you give children information,
• 33:08
  right, and you say, you know, this this is what could happen to your teeth um if you eat a lot of
• 33:14
  sweets. What do you think would be the best course of action here? When you're honoring their status
• 33:20
  and respect, when you are helping them to be wise, giving them the opportunity to think and be wise
• 33:28
  so that they're not feeling controlled by you in making the decision, but they instead are feeling
• 33:34
  internally empowered. That's really where we can um move forward from petty disputes about things
• 33:43
  like sweets and actually start your child thinking about what might be the best course of action
• 33:50
  which is a long process which will take many many years. It's no quick fix. But I think this is why
• 33:56
  we need to be seeing parenting as this very long journey. Oh, I've just been taken back to a memory
• 34:01
  when I was a a teenager in school, primary school, um there was an option to watch this thing about
• 34:08
  drugs, you know, they gave the option to parents and my mom was like, "You're definitely going to
• 34:12
  go watch this." I was like, "Oh, no." But it was a horrible I mean, I don't know why they did. They
• 34:15
  wouldn't do it in in British schools here. But basically, they showed us this video of just Yeah.
• 34:21
  what happens when you take drugs. Like literally these people agreed to be filmed and then you're
• 34:26
  there watching and you're 12 and you're seeing this and it was the worst thing ever. It It had
• 34:34
  such an emotional horribly awful effect on me that I've just I'm I do not want anything to do with
• 34:42
  drugs. Don't want it. I don't want to be that. I don't want to be that at all. And it worked. I
• 34:47
  mean, they don't do that in in schools now, but I That's kind of what you're saying, isn't it?
• 34:52
  show them rather than just an adult coming in bad teeth. Yeah. Rather than an adult just coming in
• 34:58
  and saying don't do this. Well, the child's brain is particularly in the teenage years, the child's
• 35:05
  brain is actually primed to be like risk risk and rebellion. The child is like more primed
• 35:13
  for that than they are for like listening. Why are they like that? Because they need to individuate
• 35:19
  from their parents. And this is a healthy process, but you know, it can be done in a way that honors
• 35:29
  the teenager's sovereignty, right? Rather than taking away and kind of like squashing the the
• 35:38
  the teenager. I think it's really interesting to look at how other cultures raise teenagers. Okay.
• 35:45
  And um yeah, well the happiest teenagers in the world are apparently in the Netherlands,
• 35:52
  are they? Yeah. And um gosh, uh this is apparently they have like just a very respectful culture with
• 36:00
  their teenagers. And there's also a great deal of listening as well within that culture towards
• 36:07
  teenagers. Um and the kind of more traditional approach where we might be lecturing a teenager
• 36:13
  which goes down like a ton of bricks, right, doesn't work. Um that's that's less of a thing
• 36:19
  apparently. Yeah. You know, um on on the freedom thing as well because as as they become older,
• 36:25
  phones are a thing, aren't they? And apps on the phone and everything like that. And my husband
• 36:30
  um well, we're both in in marketing and he specifically is specializes in digital marketing.
• 36:35
  He knows everything about these apps and whatever. and and um and and the age of when they should
• 36:41
  have phones and everything. And I was like, you know, pushing pushing back against going, look, we
• 36:45
  just want to leave that as late as possible. Don't pollute their brains. I don't want them having all
• 36:49
  this radiation, you know, the typical things. Um and um we need to monitor. And he was like,
• 36:54
  look, just just don't because if you monitor too much and you you start to take it away, they're
• 37:00
  going to want it more and then you won't know what they're doing on the apps because they'll
• 37:04
  have them. They will have them. He was spot on because I saw this happening with basically all
• 37:10
  of the kids and I know this for a fact that were prohibited these apps and their phones
• 37:17
  taken away. They all had secret accounts anyway and they were all on other devices and using other
• 37:23
  mechanisms to access these accounts. And this was all done behind the parents back because
• 37:27
  they couldn't trust the parent to allow them to have the technology. And I'm really glad that I
• 37:33
  was going to go down that ultra strict route for as long as I possibly could. And it's only thanks
• 37:39
  to to my husband that I didn't. And I'm grateful for it. He was right because actually giving them
• 37:44
  that and access to it and then just explaining it to them. And he did a lot of training them on
• 37:48
  how the apps work and how they're going to send you information. If you watch something once,
• 37:53
  it's going to go into a program. He explained it to them and even made them do some work on it,
• 37:57
  you know, for them to run a campaign and then see how that's fed back to them. So,
• 38:01
  he's even got them learning about digital marketing, but that actually helped them.
• 38:05
  And then when it came to my my daughter and her studying, she goes, "I'm switching off Tik Tok.
• 38:10
  I'm I'm totally deleting it for the whole of my exam period because it's too it's it's having an
• 38:15
  effect on me and I'm I'm getting too addicted. So, I'm going to switch it off myself." She did
• 38:18
  it herself. I had nothing to do with it. So in that way the lack of freed the giving freedom
• 38:24
  and not prohibiting them that was useful for the teenagers weirdly where you think the opposite
• 38:30
  teenagers need to be more controlled it's instinct to control them isn't it yeah and I think you
• 38:36
  know with with technology in general I think that parents do a disservice to themselves and to their
• 38:48
  kids if they don't ask this crucial question. Are the phones serving the family? Because technology
• 38:57
  is here to serve us and if it is costing us more than it is serving us and it might be costing us
• 39:04
  if the child is doing these sneaky behaviors, you know, um behind the parents back, you know, that
• 39:10
  that's the question we really need to come back to. And I love the example you used there because
• 39:15
  it sounded like your husband was doing the thing that I really think teenagers need, which is media
• 39:22
  literacy and critical thinking skills. Because media literacy, the ability to look at the content
• 39:31
  and critically analyze it and question it and not to take it at face value, but be curious and ask,
• 39:38
  you know, what is this video normalizing? And is that normal? Yeah. It's emotional intelligence
• 39:45
  again. Critical thinking. That's what is going to protect your child. Yeah. It's good. Yeah. Yeah. I
• 39:51
  like it when they come to you with it and they're like, look what they're showing now and the things
• 39:55
  if something bothers them because they're allowed it. Yeah, they'll actually show. Oh, and oh no,
• 40:00
  that's that thing where it will burn your body if you do this cuz this is, you know, there some
• 40:04
  borax, you know, things like sometimes they have these these challenges that they want kids to do
• 40:10
  that are very dangerous. You know, they'll show it to you. Oh, look, this is going around again.
• 40:14
  Or what do you think about this? You, oh my word, what's that? That's going around. But otherwise,
• 40:17
  you would never have that intel. Yeah. If you didn't have that trust and it is intel,
• 40:22
  but I think it's different with parenting smaller kids where you can't. If you gave them that phone,
• 40:26
  they'd be gone. They'd never you never see them again. Yeah. And I think, you know,
• 40:29
  in that sense, it's probably different, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, a technology like phones, screens,
• 40:35
  it's like a donut, right? A donut is nice. It's, you know, sweet, but you wouldn't let your child
• 40:43
  have 20 donuts because then that would not be healthy. It's exactly the same. You know,
• 40:51
  we don't want to deny our child the donut every time, but also you wouldn't give them 20 donuts.
• 40:58
  And I think it goes back to the boundaries. It's like having boundaries, but also with teenagers,
• 41:05
  like respecting the child within the boundary. And really the best kind of boundaries that work
• 41:12
  with teenagers are the ones where the child feels respected within the boundary and where the child
• 41:19
  has some buyin with the boundary. So where the child understands that yeah this boundary is here
• 41:25
  to help me develop healthy habits. This boundary is here to help me get the values of the family
• 41:33
  right. This boundary is here to keep me safe. This boundary is not here to control me or squaltch me.
• 41:40
  This boundary is here to give me skills for the future. Yeah. And so let's talk about because
• 41:46
  we spoke about the community. Yeah. So we've got this nuclear family and yes most of us, you know,
• 41:50
  we're in this nuclear family. We don't have the privilege of having all the grandparents,
• 41:54
  everyone. Some of us they're living abroad and there's all that kind of situation. Um different
• 41:59
  cities, towns. It's quite difficult. But then you've got the other influences. So you've got
• 42:04
  the the nearby kids in, you know, and the kids in the school and then or your university or whatever
• 42:10
  it is, nursery school and and nursery schools have different ways of looking after kids. It's
• 42:15
  so different. You go to one than the other. The parenting style, the upbringing style, whatever
• 42:20
  you want to call it. I mean, the the the famous case of um Molly May recently um with the whole
• 42:26
  the toddlers um biting each other in the nursery school. And of course toddlers are allowed to,
• 42:32
  you know, they are allowed to do things like that because they're toddlers. But then of course,
• 42:35
  you know, the nursery school will put mechanisms in place hopefully to prevent that. Um,
• 42:40
  and some nurseries might be doing it differently to other nurseries. But there are these other
• 42:45
  influences and you let your child go and it goes into these spaces. And how do you
• 42:49
  know how do you even choose a place? And sometimes you might not even be able to.
• 42:54
  you're you're just living in a in a neighborhood that's maybe not the greatest and then your kid is
• 42:58
  in the school and then it gets really influenced. So you have to what you double up on parenting
• 43:03
  or how does how do you even navigate this? It's hard and again we live in a nonoptimal society.
• 43:12
  But I think one of the most important things to remember is that whatever the outside influence,
• 43:20
  you should be the primary source of influence for your child. And how you do that is by doubling
• 43:28
  down on belonging. So your home needs to be a deep place of belonging for your child. And
• 43:36
  if the child feels that they deeply belong in the family, everything else is slightly
• 43:43
  less important. And you know, in our culture, belonging. Yeah. Yeah. And belonging is the
• 43:52
  opposite of shame. So if you want to raise confident kids who are secure in themselves,
• 43:59
  we double down on belonging. And really within this is also like an attachment piece.
• 44:05
  So we think of Daniel Seagull's four S's of attachment. The child needs to be safe at
• 44:12
  home. So that's emotionally safe. So they're going to do an emotion and the parent is going to hold
• 44:18
  them through that emotion, not try to fix it or squaltch it, but your emotions are valid,
• 44:24
  right? And obviously physically safe. They are valid, aren't they? They are valid. The child
• 44:29
  needs to be seen. And by that that means you need to listen to your child more than you go in to fix
• 44:37
  more than you go in to give advice. Listening to your child so that they feel deeply understood.
• 44:43
  Because if a child feels deeply understood at home, they are able to weather the storms of being
• 44:50
  not understood in other environments. If they feel deeply understood at home, soothed is the
• 44:57
  next S. And that really the world would be a much much better place if everybody was more soothed
• 45:06
  soothed. And so often as parents that flamed. Yes. Exactly. So often as parents that's what
• 45:13
  we're needing is to feel more soothed. And then basically if you do those three things repeatedly
• 45:20
  over time that creates the fourth S which is a secure attachment. And a secure attachment,
• 45:29
  it transcends all time and space throughout the child's life. Because a child, if they're securely
• 45:35
  attached to their caregivers at home, it's like giving the child a protective force field. So
• 45:44
  they can go into situations where people don't understand them or maybe, you know, it's not the
• 45:49
  ideal situation and they can know I have inherent worth. Yeah. Oh, I love that. That's powerful.
• 45:56
  There's also something that I that I was thinking about and I do think about a lot throughout
• 46:01
  parenting, but I saw it yesterday. Um I went to the park and there was a a granddad and the little
• 46:09
  toddler. Yeah. Um they'd only sort of got there, you know. Um and they were talking and the little
• 46:16
  kid was playing really nicely on the swings and done having a wonderful time. And then just soon
• 46:22
  after that, not not many minutes went by and then the the grand said, "Come on, we need to go back
• 46:27
  now. We need to go back now." And the little kid didn't want to. And it was like, "No, come
• 46:31
  on." And actually, I felt really sorry for the kid because obviously, yes, his mommy's mommy's home.
• 46:35
  And you think, so what? So what? That she's home. Give the kid a break. You know, it's probably been
• 46:41
  trapped, you know, in some nursery or whatever. It's finally outside. What a lovely, you know,
• 46:46
  this just before sunset. It was really, you know, and just lovely to be out there and you sort of
• 46:51
  you felt for the child and I was like with the kid I actually and the kid started getting frustrated
• 46:56
  with this grandpa who was now insisting oh come on now we need to go and you sort of and the kid
• 47:01
  was protesting that it was right. I think like I I know I'm sure they had their reasons you can
• 47:07
  rationalize as an adult but what if the kid is right? Yeah. And I think what you point to there
• 47:14
  is is the child's primary need is for play. Second also attachment play that. Yeah. And really what
• 47:26
  we we live in a society that's quite prejudic against children as in we deem the adult to be
• 47:33
  more important than the child. And you see this in like all aspects of life. But really when we
• 47:41
  question that for a moment and we say well why are we so prejudiced against the child the child
• 47:47
  is a human they are just a less developed human. Now that doesn't mean we put the child's needs
• 47:53
  above all else but it does mean mean we might have empathy for the child whilst we set the boundary
• 48:00
  that we kind of see their needs that we see their pain. Doesn't mean that we always have to bend to
• 48:08
  that and accommodate it. But we can be kind as we go through and progress and set boundaries
• 48:16
  because the child is a person and if we kind of respect their personhood whilst we parent
• 48:23
  then it's easier for them and it's easier for us. So setting boundaries but doing so with kindness,
• 48:29
  love and empathy. It's like strength and softness both together. there. And if we're too soft and
• 48:35
  we're too or we're too strong, it's really finding that middle ground that is the way through. We we
• 48:41
  we become great leaders. You so you speak a lot about belonging and this connection. And what it
• 48:51
  seems to me that you're saying is you want to I suppose it makes sense. You want to stay close to
• 48:57
  your child and to understand them, what they want, what's right for them, to be empathetic to their
• 49:04
  needs. It's not all about you and your job and where you need to go, but it's also about them and
• 49:08
  them being outside. And it's like it's giving that time and that sensitivity to to their experience
• 49:15
  and their world and just sort of Yeah. for it to not to be more about them. I think it sounds
• 49:23
  like I I think you know the child is a member of the community. So the child is important,
• 49:28
  the parent is also important and it's you know the family unit is important and the world should not
• 49:34
  revolve around the child but the world should also not revolve around the parent. It's uh you you are
• 49:40
  a collective of people and when we respect each other's needs within the community doesn't mean
• 49:49
  we always have to be able to meet the need but when we respect the need that's where we find more
• 49:54
  peace in our families. Okay. So to bring up a kid a child to an adult that's um a resilient adult
• 50:02
  you know that can survive in today's hectic world. How do we do that? Because a lot of the time with
• 50:07
  the schools the conditioning is to always be a a people pleaser, teacher pleaser. Yes, please,
• 50:12
  no thank you, sit there, be quiet, don't have an opinion. There is a bit of that and sometimes kids
• 50:17
  are a bit boxed in and they have to just be very goody goody shoes or they won't do well in the
• 50:22
  school. Um, but then again, you also don't want I mean, of course, depends on the school, but some,
• 50:26
  you know, will run riot and then, yeah, they've got no no Yeah. Yeah. boundaries or whatever,
• 50:32
  you know, and then they grow up like that. Um but how how do we allow them to be you know ones that
• 50:38
  have the opinions and that are risktakers but also obedient in a way when they need to be you
• 50:44
  know this is the great simplest term this is the great challenge and you know I always think people
• 50:50
  pleasing is not a helpful term people pleasing is selfabandonment it is denying your own needs
• 50:57
  in order to prioritize somebody else's needs teacher pleasing then teacher pleasing let's
• 51:02
  put controversially teacher. The teacher said, "Shush, be quiet, don't talk, don't do this,
• 51:06
  don't do that." And you have to be quiet because the lessonness is gone. But what if your opinion
• 51:11
  is valid, all that? Yeah. I think one of the things about school and you know, I was a
• 51:16
  secondary school. I was a secondary school teacher for 10 years and um one of the things about school
• 51:24
  that I think is very helpful to think about is that it's a game. And if we tell our teach our
• 51:33
  kids that school is a game and we play the game well, we get good outcomes, right? Where we really
• 51:42
  and truly belong is at home and that's where we derive our inherent worth from, right? Gosh.
• 51:49
  And you know, school is a game that we play and it's kind of like respecting that school has these
• 51:58
  rules and that sometimes we may not get our needs met at school, right? Our need to be heard may not
• 52:05
  be met, our need for freedom may not be met. And really, this is where we can honor those needs
• 52:12
  in the times out of school. So, and really tuning into what are your child's unique most prevalent
• 52:20
  needs. So, for example, one of my kids has a high need for freedom and he says he comes home from
• 52:27
  school and he says, "I've just been told what to do all day." Right. Yeah. And feel like that for
• 52:34
  them. Yeah. And so to give him some space in the in the time after school where he is allowed to be
• 52:41
  free and I find he's so much more cooperative with me if I'm able to give him that space. You know,
• 52:48
  if your child, yeah, has a strong need to be heard and they do not get that need met at school,
• 52:57
  then you need to be meeting that need perhaps by creating times when you listen to them. And
• 53:05
  then when there's a pause in the listening, you ask them, "Is there anything more? Tell me some
• 53:11
  more about that." And you give them more of an opportunity to be heard. and you highlight to the
• 53:18
  child the needs that they're not getting met at school so that they can understand why they find
• 53:25
  it hard at school. Because really all we are as humans is a bag of feelings and needs and feelings
• 53:32
  and needs drive all of our behavior. So the more you can empathize with your child's feelings and
• 53:37
  needs and help them understand their own feelings and needs, the more we're creating children who
• 53:43
  can go through life and become like resilient because they know themselves. And on the subject
• 53:48
  of resilience and and parents will definitely be be watching and and having a similar experience
• 53:54
  and wanting to know more about it. Is it okay for the parent to sometimes step in so if there's a
• 53:59
  bully? Every every school has a rogue bully. Every school has someone that's annoying. Yeah,
• 54:04
  sorry. We'll call them that. A kid that's maybe a bit, you know, and um and and also the parents of
• 54:11
  the kid also being quite, you know, always getting involved and like just being So when is it okay as
• 54:20
  a parent to also step in and come in and save your child, but like you know stand with them
• 54:26
  or and when is it not okay and let them sort of go through it? I think to be resilient. Yeah, I think
• 54:32
  this speaks to something a little bit deeper, which is about the difference between being in
• 54:37
  a fixing energy to being a a in a holding space energy. So, when when you're in a fixing energy,
• 54:46
  everything feels like an emergency. Everything feels very urgent. We need to go in. We need to
• 54:50
  fix. We need to sort this out now. It's on. It's on. And so many parents are in that fixing energy
• 54:57
  because no one in their life has ever held space for them. Right. A holding space energy is much
• 55:06
  slower, more trusting, more grounded. It trusts that with with space, time, guidance, and support
• 55:18
  that the child will be able to solve their own problems. That doesn't mean we leave them alone
• 55:25
  because of course sometimes it's right for you to step in. Of course, it is. But we do so with
• 55:32
  a slower pace, not with urgency and emergency, but with a more trusting pace. And one of the
• 55:42
  greatest things I think we can teach our children is about boundaries, their own boundaries. So
• 55:48
  obviously we've spoken about boundaries in the context of sort of like rules and guidelines,
• 55:52
  but there's another way of looking at boundaries, which is how they protect their energy. those kind
• 55:58
  of emotional protect the energy cuz kids can be mean to each other like we know kids can
• 56:03
  get out of control. Yeah. And a kid with weak boundaries is like an open target for bullies.
• 56:13
  But a kid who understands their boundaries, who knows their worth, who knows that they belong,
• 56:19
  who has a stronger boundary, they're less of a target for bullies because when a bully tries
• 56:27
  to take their energy, the child protects their energy. Yeah. And and they need those lessons,
• 56:31
  you know, they need the bullies and the rogue ones and the strange ones and these ones and the ones
• 56:37
  that don't talk and the ones that talk too much because that's going to be life. So if they don't
• 56:41
  practice now, not everything's rosy. Please do encounter a bully and a weird one and a whatever
• 56:48
  a wacky type and one that you don't understand and the the nice ones and encounter them all
• 56:53
  because that's going to be the kaleidoscope of and and added to this is one of the most important
• 57:00
  things you can do as a parent is give your child a healthy set of beliefs. Because if your child
• 57:07
  has a great set of beliefs, things like I am inherently good enough, I am worthy of love and
• 57:17
  belonging. I'm a good person, I can handle things, I am capable. If your child has those beliefs,
• 57:28
  then they can go through the schooling system. They can experience times when things are tough.
• 57:36
  and they will be able to thrive and overcome. And so often parents get it wrong in that their
• 57:43
  role they think is to to sort of like double down on academics, make my child like great at like 10
• 57:49
  different they can play piano, they can swim, but do they have a good set of beliefs? And
• 57:54
  sometimes those activities, you know, swimming or whatever it might be can aid those beliefs.
• 58:00
  But sometimes if a child is so busy, they don't get the space to develop those beliefs and the
• 58:08
  kind of guidance and they're being held in order to grow those beliefs. I think we've just done a
• 58:14
  full 360 and we've come back to the very first question which was the parents when I said the
• 58:21
  most popular most asked question about parenting is am I a good parent and you said it's am I a
• 58:30
  capable parent and it's the belief that you are and then getting the skills whether it's
• 58:37
  a coach someone to help you someone to speak to to sharpen those skills because we're we're all
• 58:42
  works in progress. I always say it on this show, we're all work in progress. And whatever way you
• 58:48
  can improve and be better, do it because we can all be better. All of us. But am I capable? Am
• 58:55
  I a good parent? Yeah. Yes, you are. And you can do it. Yeah. It's been wonderful having you on.
• 59:01
  Thank you. It's been fun. Thank you so much. Great. Really enjoyed it. Thanks. Thank you.